


Something Tells me

by Fleem



Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleem/pseuds/Fleem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Mitchell first meets Josie. How did he get there? And why? The events before, during and after S2E5, The Looking Glass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**All characters belong to TW.**

* * *

Like sex, it's a nearly involuntary response. When we're ready, there's a vacuum so powerful it draws the eyes past open from the inside, sucked back toward the coiled, pulling emptiness that animates us. That's not the only physical change: when the eyes go black, if you have enough wits about you to notice, you will see the entire body cave in slightly from the vacuum, in anticipation of refilling. This is the body rearranging itself to create room for fresh blood. As with sex, the turnons are specific to the person. A specific sensation or emotion can set off the feeding response: for some it's violence; for some it's the smell of blood or of fear. For some, the process turns seamlessly from sex to feeding, a taking and another taking.

Inside, humans are warm, multicolored and pulsating. Open us up, and we are cold, black, and hollow, and if you listen carefully you will hear a low hiss, the sound of the energy being sucked from the environment to keep us, for lack of a more accurate word, living. We still bleed, but it's not our own blood. When we feed, each new wash of blood damps down the memories of the one before.

* * *

Heart opens blackness emerges. Endless hunger. Dark shapes flying.

Vacuum pulling sucking squeezing empty, empty, cold, empty, squalling.

Dull holes and shiny holes. Birds shrieking. Blood. Quiet.

Wake unclothed frayed bloody sated aching muzzy.

What did I do?

Oh, yeah. This again.

* * *

We're in a ballroom. We come here a lot, and are known by the bartenders, a new girl on each arm every night. The ceiling sparkles with thousands of tiny lights like artificial stars. It's early, maybe eight in the evening. The party shows evidence of an excess of money and a deficit of taste: colored oil slick projections on the walls, grass-skirted girls dancing in cages. Herrick pokes me in the ribs and says, "Look, they've already packaged up our takeaway order!"

I give a tight grin but don't answer. The smarmy little fuck killed me, and this binds me to him, and requires me to do this, but I don't have to like it. He's my jailer; I do what I'm told. There are smells of sweat, hash, cigarettes, patchouli, hairspray, spilled beer, expensive perfume. Beneath the music, a low hum and throb of bodies breathing and moving, pressed together. For us, it's like an orchard at harvest time, every night. Now it's time to get picking.

Smoke hangs in the air in a cloud over the fake stars. A band plays some jangly crap song about boats. A girl notices us. Clearly, her night has started early. She's young, late teens or early twenties, wearing a short sleeveless A-line dress, and her hard straight brown hair has gotten mussed on one side, where it sticks out in a tuft held together with hairspray. She has oversized black eyelashes glued above blue eyes with wide, wide pupils.

We watch her from the corner of the room, where we're sitting by a low table in front of the half-wall that divides the dance floor from the bar area. We are in conservative suits and ties, and she seems attracted to our out-of-place grownup look among all the rosy-cheeked unkempt boys in ladies' blouses and flared corduroy trousers. Her thick black eyeliner is smudged where she's extended it past her eyes. She still has traces of pale frosty pink lipstick. She looks from me to Herrick, back at me. I make eye contact and smile. I see her body relax slightly. Half the work's done.

She walks up to us. Another girl follows. She's around the same age as the first, freckled, with short blonde hair, walking carefully with one hand trailing on the wall to steady herself. Her yellow dress ends at a point about three inches below her crotch. She is barefoot. There's a long scrape down one of her shins. I remind myself to look at her face. Although she's stopped walking, her hand is still petting the flocked fleurs-de-lis on the wallpaper.

They're on more than wine and hash. Surrounding both of them is a haze of confusion and a very faint chemical odor. This doesn't worry us in the least. From experience, we know that the chemicals have only a minimal effect on us and, if consumed, do little but enhance our ability to see changes in the subtle energy surrounding each person, to better gauge their moods and physical states. Useful if you're a predator.

I give a welcoming smile and take the brunette's hand and pull out a seat for her. Herrick cocks his head toward the blonde, and beckons to the open spot on the sofa beside him. "Take a load off, sweetheart," he says. He goes to the bar and comes back with a couple of bottles of wine and two more glasses. He pours them each a fresh glass.

"Top you off, soldier?" Without waiting for an answer or looking at me, he fills my glass to brimming. While the girls thank him in halting, distracted voices and shakily sip at theirs, I toss back half my glass, pause, then finish the other half. Herrick fills it again.

Herrick tells them we are party magicians, which explains our attire, and that we would like to recruit them as our assistants for our next show. I light a cigarette for each girl, and one for me. Herrick makes a couple more trips to the bar for refills. "So, how do you like to spend your time?" I ask the girls. I don't usually have to say very much. They say they are costume design students at the theatre school. I nod and make agreeable sounds while the girls yammer on. The brunette stops and looks intently at a point somewhere next to my ear. "Are you magical?" she asks.

They are stoned out of their minds, so they are easy to impress. Herrick is doing sleight-of-hand card tricks for them. It's a corny routine, but they are fascinated by the shuffling, the deck arching into a whirring triangle as the cards weave together. He has one of them pick a card, tears it in two, and discovers it, restored, in his pocket. "Was this it?" he asks, waving the ten of spades in a triumphant circle. Then he stops and tops off my glass.

He has one of them hold the deck while the other selects a card, shows it to the first, and then replaces it. "Three of hearts?" he asks. He sends it wiggling up out of the deck as if it is rising on its own. The girls look at each other with eyes like saucers, and then watch him, fixated on his crisp, practiced gestures and on the fluid motion of the cards. Then the blond gets distracted. She is deeply interested in the polished wooden table top. The brunette nudges her and points. "Look! He's bossing the air around!"

I see him arch an eyebrow at me. He's decided we are ready, and I'm glad, because I would like to have done with them. "So, ladies, would you like to come help us prepare for the show? We need to gather up our props before we go on," Herrick says. He widens his eyes conspiratorially and waggles an imaginary magic wand. This is the closing of the deal. I always hate him most at this moment.

We take them to the room we call our "rehearsal space," which is a closed-off alcove in the lower level of the building, directly beneath the stage. The band hasn't finished its set, and is still jangling away. Herrick closes the door. He doesn't bother to lock it; that will just make more trouble for the cleanup crew. The girls are so high they couldn't find their way out without help. I'm holding the brunette by the arm as we walk, and she's staring all around, lurching, her eyes fixed in the middle distance. I can see the air around her shimmering slightly. Herrick brings the blonde over to a battered sofa covered in old blankets, and the other girl and I retreat to the opposite corner of the room.

She leans back against the wall and looks at me.

"You're a pretty one, aren't you?" she says. "Let me see you close up." She takes my hand and pulls me to her. She reaches through the red haze building in my field of vision as the feeding urge takes hold, and touches my face. She moves her fingers in a small circle against my cheek, carefully exploring its texture. It's an odd gesture. I can see the pulse in her neck, and feel it in her fingertips.

The hollowness is pulling at my eyes and drawing in my chest. My fangs come out.

"You made your face look different. Why did you do that?" She's not scared. Her voice is puzzled, almost accusatory.

"Did you turn on?" she asks. "I did." That's pretty obvious.

"Yeah," I say. I did, but not in the way she means. Her fingers slide down my cheek, boneless and clumsy. I'm feeling a little impatient. She's too far gone for the usual seduction routine, so I'm not sure where to start.

Then she helps me out. "Do you want to kiss me?"

I don't answer. I take her hand from my cheek, put my mouth to her wrist as if to kiss it, and bite. It should have been a smoother move, but she's not responding in the way I expect her to, and I don't anticipate it when she shifts her weight backward to look at me. I have to catch her around the waist so she doesn't fall backward. I haven't released her arm. It's awkward.

I see her eyes widen. The blood is oddly hot and stings as it goes down my throat, but I don't care. Then her free hand runs from her own bare shoulder, down the length of her bitten arm, across my face, the index finger insistently drawing a line in blood across my cheek, down the back of my neck, to the center of my back. It's tracing the path of her blood as I drink.

She pulls at my shoulder, like she's trying to get my attention. Her dilated eyes close slightly and she presses herself against me. In her state of mind, it's just another interesting thing that happens. "Oooooh. We're moving the energy around," she says, breathing raggedly. "MY energy. Into you. How about that? Into you."

Her tone is astonished but clinical, as if she has discovered a previously unknown element or chemical reaction. She's learned a new fact: My body needs this.

Her pulse quickens and weakens and I feel the fingers cooling against the side of my face as they are drained. Her other hand is still running between us, following the blood, down her arm, across my face, down my back, over and over. Then she nods absently to herself, and stops. She has come to some kind of conclusion in her mind.

"You know, I can fill you," she whispers. "You will be full of me." She locks eyes with me but doesn't register that mine are inhumanly black. She reaches between my shirt buttons, tearing one off as she pushes her free hand inside. It's cool against my skin, which is starting to warm with her blood. Her nails dig into my chest, right above where the blood pools inside, where a heart would beat if I were alive. She is trying to claw her way inside me. She brings her face close to mine, looks intently at me over her own bleeding arm.

Her eyes narrow and her voice is harsh and insistent. "Take all of it," she says. She presses her wrist hard against my teeth. I have to resist to keep my head from being pushed backward. The blood flows even faster.

This is like a film I do not want to be in. What I need is for her to shut up while I kill her.

There's a wooden cable spool being used as a table in this corner of the room, and I haul her roughly over to it and take her by the neck. As my teeth sink into her skin, she says, in the same insistent voice, "My energy is still moving. It's coming out. I'm putting it into you. I'm *pushing* it into you." And she is. The blood flows into me of its own accord, gushing forcefully down my throat. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. She's stopped talking, but I put my hand over her mouth. I don't want to hear any more.

All the liquor in the world could not make this ok. I hate her. I hate her.

The red haze is so thick I can't see her anymore. I hear nothing but my own indrawn hiss. She can no longer speak. Her blood can't push into me anymore, but I'm still taking it from her. I'm draining HER. And draining her. She's done.

In the background I can hear Herrick having his way with the blonde. She screams, struggles a bit, and dies. He's so fucking tidy.


	2. Chapter 2

**All Being Human characters belong to TW. Thanks again for letting me spend more time with them.**

* * *

The monster has been fed, but I'm not sure what just happened. The red haze should have cleared by now, but it hasn't. I want to smash everything within reach. I'm hopped up on blood, unable to sit still, and furious. I've no right to be - I've just killed the girl, for fuck's sake. I pace back and forth, fists clenched, mind racing, trying to calm down. I'm practically tearing my hair out. I can't think. I feel sick.

Herrick stands by the door and shakes his head at my lack of composure. Fortunately, he was busy with his own kill, so I don't think he heard exactly how mine went down. He puts his hand on my shoulder and smiles in a way that he must imagine is fatherly. I can see all of his teeth.

"Did she do something to upset you, Mitchell?"

"She was so high..." I search for the right thing to say. I'm trying to keep my voice from shaking. "...uh, it was more of a hassle than it usually is."

"Look." He gestures at the limp body on the table. "You appear to have won the battle." Blood is still dripping slowly down her fingers onto the floor. I glance at it and look away. Instead, while I wait for my vision to clear, I fix my eyes on a random spot on the wall. I listen. The sound I hear makes me wince a little.

Plop.

Plop.

Through the fading red fog, I see his eyes harden and his smile disappear. "Get a grip, solider, she's history."

He's towelling off his face and running a comb through his hair. His suit is immaculate. He's already wrapped up the blonde in one of the old blankets from the sofa, and she's lying in a neat bundle on the floor. Considerate, that's him.

I look a mess. My shirt is smeared with blood as if it's been fingerpainted.

"It's still early. Get yourself freshened up." He gestures at the rack against the opposite wall, which holds several sets of identical shirts, suits and ties, as well as a few overcoats and scarves. I leave the soiled clothes in a corner, wipe myself down, check my nails, and get dressed again. When I pull my fingers through my hair, I don't feel any blood caked into it, so I guess it's fine. I close my eyes and will myself to be calm. I need to put the memory far away.

Gradually, the blood sets things right. Colors return to normal. I feel my strength returning. Better.

"Onward, Mitchell." Herrick is hurrying us out the door so the mess can be cleared away as quickly as possible.

As we emerge from the room, I hear bloodcurdling screams from down the hall. I flatten against the recessed doorway and peek around the corner.

"You fucking swine! You disgusting lying sack of putrified shit!" A door slams. A girl sits in the hallway with her back against the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees, crying and cursing. "I knew I shouldn't have believed him when he said we were serious. I knew it! I knew it! Loathsome, monstrous piece of filth!"

She's got a mouth on her, but she's a soft-featured pretty thing. Her mascara is running down her cheeks and her blonde hair is coming loose from the ribbon that was holding it back. The flickering bluish light in the hallway washes out the orange-on-white flower print on her dress, making the color look almost rusty brown. She has on white boots that go up to her knees.

Herrick isn't hiding. He sees possibilities. He stands there in plain sight with his hands in his pockets and watches. He gestures at me to come out of the doorway, which I do as casually as possible, and then he asks me for a cigarette. We turn away to smoke and to eavesdrop. In the commotion, I don't think she's noticed us. Even in the downstairs hallway, people are milling about, dealing drugs in corners, having loud discussions, or staring into space. They gather into conversational knots that break up and then form again with new members. They drown out the cool jazz being piped in as background music. The next act won't be on for at least half an hour.

Someone is trying to calm down the crying girl, who's still hunched against the wall. Her friend sits on the floor beside her and pulls her into an affectionate sideways hug. "He's in a band. You know they're all pigs. They can't help themselves - they'll take any blowjob they can get. He's not worth getting upset over."

Down the hall, near where they are sitting, the door opens again, and a man looks out. He has long wispy light hair down his back and a receding hairline. His stupid ruffled pink shirt is unbuttoned and his belt is undone. "Come on, Jenna, we're on the road! Everyone does it! It's no big deal!" He has the look of a dog caught stealing food from the counter. Pathetic.

"Don't speak to me!" She waves him away.

"But, Jenna..." He's practically whining.

Her friend stands up and steps between Jenna and the band boy. She's in jeans, a floaty embroidered cotton blouse, and red shoes with three-inch heels. "She said, don't speak to her! You'd best remove your sorry arse from her presence before I shove my foot into it." He sighs deeply, rolls his eyes, and ducks back into the room he came from.

She returns to Jenna, rubs her back, and they sit quietly for a minute. "Shit," says Jenna, "I'm not riding home with them, Stephanie. I'm not."

We stub out our cigarettes and wander off casually as Stephanie and Jenna quietly discuss disgraceful male behavior and how the hell they're going to get home.

* * *

Upstairs, we scout for another spot where we can camp out and watch the crowd. There's nowhere to sit, so we stand at the far end of the bar, facing the room, well away from where the bartender is taking drink orders. Herrick rocks back on his heels, clasps his hands behind his back, and grins.

"Such a fine-looking group of young people," he says. "So nice to see them enjoying themselves, don't you think?" I look out into the room, scannning for vulnerable targets. We search for anyone who seems to be lost or intoxicated or otherwise unmoored. Even without making an effort, I can see that there's no shortage of prospects.

"There are a lot them, that's for sure," I say. I gaze at my shoes and frown.

"Relax, Mitchell. Join the party," says Herrick. He punches my arm in a way that looks playful, but is actually hard enough to leave a mark. I have to consciously relax my forehead and unclench my jaw. Although I'm still feeling very rattled, my job is to charm and attract, not frighten people away. I've been told more than once that I have quite an intimidating scowl.

"You're not yourself tonight. Wait here while I fetch us a drink."

Herrick vanishes into the dense crowd vying for the bartender's attention.

* * *

I am never myself. That man died.

Humans are weak and sentimental, always hoping for the best. I was. I wasn't perfect, but I meant well.

_We are on our way to Belgium. It is clammy and damp for June, with permanently gray skies and an endless slow drizzle. There are already a lot of wounded. The smell of blood must have attracted him. I am keeping watch and he takes me by surprise, whispering his threats and promises into my ear. He is wearing an officer's uniform._

_I'm appalled, but I don't have very long to think about it. He pulls my rifle out of my hands and drops it in the mud, then somehow he's standing over me. The damp ground is soaking through my coat; my own _warm_  blood is sliding down my skin where the mud has dried and cracked and contracted; my ears, lips, hands, and feet are going numb; there's rain pattering on my eyelids and into my open eyes. With a finger, he swipes up blood welling from my throat, and brings it to my own mouth, then to his; my vision fades and goes black. There is an oddly gentle look in his eyes afterward as he feeds me his blood, now mingled with mine._

I let him take me so he would spare everyone else. I made the wrong choice. It would have been a better bargain if I'd let him take us all. He must have known. Even if every last one of my men had been killed in the fighting that autumn, fewer people would have died. By November, most of them were dead anyway, killed at Passchendaele. In the years since, I've killed far more people than he spared that night. I try not to think about it. I can't change what happened.

All I wanted was to protect the men from danger and chaos. I tried. I still try, when I can, but now the danger is me. I'm not even sure why I bother. It's not worth the effort. There is no protection. We all die sometime. Through half a century of repetition, the horror of it has worn down to occasional twinges of disgust. The blood carries me past even that.

I meant to do the right thing, I really did. Now I live with monsters, and am one of them.

I am so sorry.

* * *

He returns with a drink in each hand and a girl on each elbow. I'm completely unsurprised that it's Jenna and Stephanie. In the press of people heading toward the bar, they practically plow into me. He hands me one of the glasses. I drink most of it immediately.

"Oh, and here's my mate, John."

Here we go. I nod in a friendly way, and offer my hand. "Pleased to meet you."

"John, these ladies seem to have lost their ride home."

The club is crowded, with no discreet way to truck around large body-shaped parcels, so our downstairs room will not be mopped and cleared out anytime soon. So far, the entertainment has been less than inspiring, and Herrick is in a good mood, flushed and cheerful. I finish my drink and set the glass on the bar.

I smile, aiming for warm and welcoming. "Need a lift, ladies?" I ask.

They exchange a look, weighing their options. Stephanie drops her shoulders, nods as if to herself, turns to me and smiles a little too broadly.

"We'd love it!" she says brightly.

"They do need to go all the way to London, so we're in for a bit of a haul. But won't that be fun? The night is young, we've just filled up on petrol, and we're always up for an adventure!" He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. "Right, John?"

He fishes around in his pocket for the car keys and jingles them gleefully.

"We're off, then! Come on, girls!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Once again, Mitchell and Herrick belong to BBC and Toby Whithouse. I'm just borrowing them.**

* * *

Once you've become a vampire, you can't see your own face anymore. I haven't seen my own face in over 50 years, except when I catch a distorted glimpse of myself reflected in people's eyes.

Because we can't see ourselves, to be safe, we copy the people around us. One thing we've found, in every decade, on every continent, is that it's always better to be overdressed than underdressed. You can get away with a lot more if you're wearing a nice suit.

By the way, nice suits are one reason why it's almost always better to feed naked.

* * *

Herrick tells the girls we're A & R men for a record company. He says we've seen the opening act and have concluded they have no future with our label, so we've no problem with leaving before the headliner. As we all walk to the car, I see him swallow a couple of purple hearts. He's not planning on sleeping tonight.

The prospect of spending so much time in a car with these girls makes me uneasy. For the most part we like to travel alone, so we don't have to hide what we are or speak indirectly. Spend too much time with humans and we are bound to slip up at some point. I mentally review my standard small talk gambits. To get people to trust you, you don't need to say much, you just need to get them to talk. Then, when I succeed in getting someone talking, I've found it's better for my own health if I don't actually listen.

Herrick takes the wheel like a cheerful bus driver. I sit in the passenger seat. The girls are in the back. They immediately light up a spliff. I take a hit when offered but Herrick declines. He likes to keep both hands on the wheel, which is good. Between the blood, the wine, and everything else, we're already plenty lit.

I watch the girls in the mirror. They don't notice I'm not in it. I'm glad it's dark.

We always sense the heat of blood and the sound of breathing; now the chemical-spiked blood shows me the drift and flutter of the impulses that make people feel and move. If I focus on them, pale swirls surround each girl's body, like another skin. Each movement leaves a vague glowing wake. Jenna's colors are almost soothing: there are smooth curves tracing her outline in gentle blues and greens. Stephanie's are all jagged lines of orange, black, and yellow. The layer of space surrounding Herrick and me is flat, black, and magnetic, drawing their glow toward us like water toward a drain. I blink away the extra visual information.

Since I didn't actually hear the story that they told Herrick, I ask what happened. "Jenna went to meet Robbie right after the set and found him with his pants around his ankles and some slag plating him." No new information there.

"Not what you were expecting?" I hold back a smile. In the closed space of the car, their human presence is very strong. I can feel their warmth and hear their breathing. They smell good, like flowers and smoke and body heat. I try to relax into the moment. This could be a fun night.

Jenna hasn't gotten over her outrage. "He said we were steady, it didn't occur to me that we were steady except when he didn't feel like it." She brushes her thick fringe out of her eyes, twists her long hair and pins it at the back of her head. "I was sure he'd be different. He's just a bass player. It's not like there are women falling all over him. Anyway, he told me that he wasn't interested in other girls, and that he loved me."

She must have noticed me smirk a little at that. "And before you say anything," she says, "I don't want to know what a man thinks about it. You can keep it to yourself."

I feel my smile widen and I hold up my hands in a gesture of mock defeat. "I wasn't going to say a thing! Promise!"

Stephanie says to her, "Listen, I've been around long enough to know - it's nothing personal. He'll take his opportunities where he finds them. It's part of his nature. They're all like that. The thoughts aren't coming from the brain, if you get my meaning."

"No shit," says Jenna. "It would be different if he were straight with me from the beginning. I've got no problem with being casual and getting your rocks off. What gets me steamed is that he made me think it was something different. I won't forgive him for that."

It's clear they've been over this already. They don't want advice. This is just girl talk. Sometimes it's not really the words they're paying attention to, it's the reassurance and friendship of hearing one another's voices. They murmur back and forth for awhile. Jenna has put her head in Stephanie's lap. They are both falling asleep. Their colors blur and soften.

The landscape is flying by, streetlights now drawing solid white lines in the corners of my vision. Soon we are out of the city. Herrick is doing 70, slowing down only to lurch the car through roundabouts, tires squealing. We have a few close calls with other cars and one, in the countryside, with a stationary cow. I'm glad the girls are sleeping. I don't expect we will drive all the way to London, and I wonder when he'll decide to stop.

"Seems a shame to wake them, don't you think, Mitchell?" His eyes are glittering dangerously. What's he got up his sleeve?

"Where the hell are we going? What's the plan here?"

"Plan? We're going to London!" he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "We've been in a bit of a rut, and I thought we could do with a change of scenery."

Okay, it's not that surprising. It wouldn't do to have too many suspicious deaths in Bristol. We often make forays out of town to spread out the damage and keep things interesting. But really, we could stop at any place that's a reasonable distance away. London is quite a long trip.

* * *

In Bristol, we are organized to maintain calm, cover our tracks, and help out those of us in need. It works well - newcomers serve on the cleanup crew to learn how to handle the details of this life, then they may rotate through other jobs like handling finances or real estate or supplies, or running the barbershop, or they may become free agents who check in only occassionally. We have liasons to local government and police to help us stay out of the public eye. It's worked this way for several centuries now, and with limited recruiting there are enough resources to support everyone.

Herrick is ambitious and he fancies himself a scientific thinker. He has theories about how vampires are the next step in the evolutionary chain. His hope is to inspire the Bristol organization into coming out from hiding to take over human society. I think it's daft. We need to be careful not to screw up the well-oiled machinery we have, not make half-witted attempts at world domination.

I'm still his soldier and his heir, though, so here I am, doing his bidding, even when it's irrational. I've begun to resent it more and more.

It wasn't always like this. We were close mates for decades. He liked that my blood tolerance was high, even at the beginning - by the time we met I had seen far worse things in combat than a ripped-out throat or mangled arm. It was fun and exciting - the scouting missions, the tactical challenges, always undercover, with a great rewarding feed at the end of each foray. And it was all a big bloody game - we would stow away on boats and trains, forge papers and change costumes, chat up the locals, enjoy what each place had to offer, and take what we wanted.

It hasn't been fun and exciting for a long time now. For one thing, it's just too easy. Predictable. Fish in a barrel.

That's not all of it, though.

* * *

We had a dry spell. We were in America in the 40s, heading for the west coast, riding freight trains, feeding on tramps and drifters. We'd no idea of the vastness of the distances, or the sparseness of the population in the middle of the country. There was a long, hungry week, I think it was in the Rocky Mountains between Denver and Salt Lake City, where the locomotive broke down, and we didn't find a single person who was not essential to getting the train moving again. We'd already killed all the other stowaways on board.

While we waited for the train to be repaired, we stayed on a rock ledge overlooking a valley lined with narrow pine trees. We had neither food nor water. The sky in that thin air was so blue it was nearly violet. In the daytime the sun was blinding.

I sat for days beside the scrub pines and sagebrush, keeping my eyes covered from the sun. With nothing to see, wave after wave of memories spooled across my vision, first the recent ones, then backward in time, earlier and earlier.

_A red-haired whore in the flophouse behind the train station in Pittsburgh, the seams of her stockings crooked. Working my way from her mouth to her neck to feed at the climax of a fuck. Smell of animal fear and lilacs. Rush of euphoria. Her skin turning from pink to white to grayish almost-blue. She told me she was from Ohio._

_Wood smoke scent of the hair of a lad in a tent as I hold him down. I jam his handkerchief into his mouth to stop him screaming. A worn hole in the sole of his boot. His bedroll, too soaked with stiffened blood to wrap tidily around his corpse._

_A pretty freckled girl wild-eyed with despair, scratching at my face while I laugh at the futility. Drinking deeply from the pulse point where the leg joins the body. The blood under her fingernails turning dry and brown while she dies._

_Pressing my forearm across a Scotsman's throat for long minutes as I stare blackly into his eyes so he knows which fucking Mick killed him before he loses consciousness. A smell of shit. Blood reeking of whiskey._

_Herrick, naked, with a face like a gargoyle, tongue lapping at a fair girl's neck that he's punctured in a thousand places, her pale blond hair sticking to his cheeks and forehead with the blood as he moves to and fro._

_A tinted photograph falling out of a man's wallet of a smiling dark-eyed baby in a sailor suit._

_Offers of cash and pleas for mercy, answered with murder. A collection of razor blades in my valise. Countless shopgirls in countless alleyways. Servants, bus drivers, grannies, derelicts, couples on holiday._

_My best friend, poisoned by my hand, slowly wasting away while I pretended to be helping him. Me, weeping beside his drained body, then feeling my strength return and then the heat in my face and then the sorrow evaporating like a bad dream._

After reliving every atrocity I'd ever committed, there I was, delirious, the sound of splintering bones and the wails of the dying echoing in my ears.

I would fall asleep, and my dreams would hold the same memories, only now I was the victim. I would see the monster, dripping with blood, and a reflection of my face in his empty black eyes. Herrick would be there too, inflicting damage, at first seeming harmless and then, without warning, turning murderous and demonic.

In the dreams, I would be suffocated, poisoned, tortured, violated, ridiculed. I would be ambushed in doorways. I would be held down, bound, gagged. I would have my throat ripped out. I would bleed from a thousand wounds and thrash in despair and lose control of my bodily functions. I would be fucked and killed. I would beg for mercy and get none.

Then I would wake up and I was again the vampire, and the ghastly film of my history would run backward once more, latest kills to earliest, ending finally in bottomless, wordless horror.

I've never been so frightened.

I don't know what Herrick was thinking during that time. If he noticed my distress, he didn't say anything about it. He was nearly silent, and his expression was distant and furious. Occasionally, when I had lucid moments, I'd hear him mutter with what sounded like deep satisfaction, his eyes closed and brow furrowed. It seemed to me he was reliving all his kills and enjoying them. Some of us are meant for this life.

When we finally got to the first sizable town, we drank until we couldn't hold any more. I was sick inside, but my body glowed with life.

Blood remains the only thing that can hold the terror at bay. Maybe if I held out long enough it would subside. I still don't know.


	4. Chapter 4

My terrifying dreams must have been caused by starvation and dehydration, because they never came back after that week in the mountains. I remember what it felt like, what I've done, and what I'll do again. I've tried to forget about them but I can't.

* * *

We're almost there. Herrick has been uncharacteristically quiet during the drive, and I'm grateful for the silence. I figure he's been concentrating on not ramming into things. Now the girls have woken up, and Jenna leans over and whispers something to him. He grins widely, nods, and banks the car into a hard right turn, narrowly missing getting us broadsided by a taxicab.

We park on a street lined with blocks and blocks of unmemorable gray low-rise flats. "A little pit stop for supplies," Herrick says. "Jenna's got a mate with anything we could possibly need!" He hops out of the car, walks around to Jenna's door to let her out. They disappear into the vestibule of one of the buildings. I'm not even sure which one. In the back seat, Stephanie is rummaging around in her handbag.

Half a minute later, Herrick comes back, opens my door, leans in, and says, "Mitchell, may I have a word?"

I get out of the car and we go a little distance away. "So... now?" I ask.

"Not yet," he says. "We'll have another munch later. 'Til then, lighten up! Enjoy yourself! You do remember what that's like, don't you?" He puts his hands in his coat pockets, turns and walks off. A second later, he's back.

"Oh, I nearly forgot! Do you happen to have any cash? I'm clean out."

There's a thickish stack of crumpled notes in my wallet. I give him the whole thing.

With a serious expression, he unfolds the money, licks his thumb, faces all the notes the same way, sorts them by denomination, counts them, folds them exactly in half, and secures them with a clip fished out of his coat pocket. The whole routine takes maybe fifteen seconds.

"This'll have to do," he says, putting the roll in the pocket of his trousers. "Back in a jiffy! Go keep that nice girl company. Show her a good time!" He goes back inside the building.

I stand on the path for a minute, collecting myself, enjoying the quiet. Then I go back to the car and slide into the seat next to Stephanie. She's still hunched over, digging through her bag. Her dyed-blond hair, which looks to be growing out from a shorter style, hangs in uneven lengths that hide her face.

"Hi, it looked a little lonely back here," I say. I'm trying to sound casual and cheery. Have I mentioned that these kinds of situations make me uncomfortable?

She sits up and gives me a fake-innocent look, her eyes narrowing slightly as she smiles. In the dim light, her green eye shadow makes her face look bruised. The roots are showing in her bleached hair. "Well, hello there," she says. "Always nice to have some company. Like a smoke?"

"Why not?"

She's very close to me, warm, fidgeting, a little sweaty. I suppress the urge to push her out of the car and drive away. It's worked before, but might not work again.

She tries to roll a cigarette, but is not having much luck in the half-light from the streetlamp. Her hands are not so steady and the tobacco keeps sliding out of the paper.

"Can I give you hand with that?" I've had a lot of practice at rolling cigarettes in the dark. She gives me the papers and tobacco and a thumbnail-sized block of hash wrapped in foil, and as she leans toward me I get a whiff of flowers and skin. There's filmy light around her, zigzagging and flickering red, orange, and black.

"Jenna usually rolls them," she says, "I'm useless at it."

It's good to have something to do with my hands. I roll a few joints, using up the hash, and give them back to her. She stashes all but one, which she puts in her mouth. I offer her a light.

As she holds the cigarette and exhales, the floppy sleeve of her blouse slides down to her elbow and I see she has marks all down her arm, scars and burns and bruises. The scars give off a faint but familiar blackness, rising from her like curls of smoke. Her hand shakes a little. She's a junkie, I think.

I nod in the direction of the house. "What are they scoring in there?"

"Some smack, more hash, maybe some speed for your mate."

"Ah."

During the war, we'd all dipped into the morphine from time to time, and even for vampires, it takes the edge off. On smack, I still crave blood, there's no escaping it, but for awhile it takes away the painful wrenching emptiness, calms the violence, helps me forget, lets me feel almost human. I could easily develop a heroin habit, but the vampire organization prevents it. A few vampires on serious drugs could wreck our relationship with the police and the stability of our group. Herrick is really pushing the limits tonight. I wonder if the rules are different in London.

She must see me looking at her arm, because she passes me the joint, pulls her sleeves down to cover her wrists, and shivers.

"It's a little chilly in here," she says. I offer her my jacket. She drapes it around her shoulders and shifts closer to me. "Thanks. You honestly don't mind, do you?"

"No, It's no trouble. I don't really feel the cold."

I don't have to be touching her to notice that she's actually warmer than normal. Her pulse is dull and fluttering, and under her flowery perfume she has a faint metallic smell like donated blood after the life's gone out of it. To be honest, she's not very appetizing; she's kind of twitchy and uncomfortable. It's okay, though. She'll be fine once she has her dope. I'll wait.

"Are you all right?" I ask.

"What's it look like to you? Do I look all right?"

"Not really. You look like you need a fix." No reason to pretend otherwise.

"Well I do. It's no fun."

"Tell me about it."

She thinks I actually want her to tell me. She takes a drag on the joint and studies my face. I look young and unmarked, my teeth are okay. I have on expensive clothes. I'm clean-shaven. I don't _look_  like I'm jonesing, and thanks to the girl earlier this evening, I'm not. I listen to that not-quite-right pulse while she talks. It drowns out most of what she's saying.

She must be saying something like, "When I have smack everything is perfect. It doesn't matter what else is happening to me. It's all cool. And without it, life is shit. I hate what I do for it. Endless, painful, frightening shit - lying, stealing, hurting people, running away. Just shit." Maybe she rolls her eyes. "I know it's cliche, but believe what they say about it. It's made me not care about anything else. Jenna is not as far into it as I am, she doesn't know, she thinks I'm just a popper, but I'm worse than that."

(I hear: Thmp swish thmp swish thmp swish...)

"Robbie and I were close, but we never really fucked or anything. We used to shoot up together. He showed me how. He was giving Jenna the wrong idea - he liked a steady lay, but mostly he cares about music and smack. I told him to show her what was what, and he did, though he was kind of a bastard about it. For some reason I feel okay about telling you. Maybe because it's not like you're trying to get in our pants."

"Excuse me?" I wasn't listening, and then she said... what?

Oh. Herrick and I have known each other more than fifty years. Perhaps she saw that we make more eye contact than most men do. He finishes my sentences sometimes. We have developed a language of glances and gestures. Occupational necessity.

"The way he looks at you...the way you look at him... I just assumed... ugh, now I feel like an idiot. I'm so sorry. My mistake. Shit. I apologize."

She puts her face in her hands and rocks back and forth, mortified. She'd thought we were queer. No wonder they'd hopped so carelessly into the car with us. Silly girls.

I look away from Stephanie and laugh. "Er, no. Sorry to disappoint you, darling."

"Oh, I'm not disappointed. Just dying of embarrassment." Nervous giggles.

"No need. It's a perfectly understandable assumption. William and I, we're both so irresistable." I start to laugh again.

Now she's laughing too. She's dope-sick, shaking and sweating, but that little insignificant faux pas really bothers her. I'm almost overcome by how funny that is. Consider: One of us is a pale and sweaty junkie needing a fix, the other is an honest-to-goodness fucking dead vampire, full of blood-lust and waiting to strike like a fucking shark. Ha. A giddy shark in a necktie.

I'm planning to kill her and drink her blood, and she's sitting there craving dope and being embarrassed because she might have hurt my feelings. I can't stop laughing. It's so ridiculous.

I tap her lightly on the nose. "You're being silly. You should stop." I try to look very very serious, but crack up again. So does she. She leans against my shoulder and collapses in fits of giggling.

I'm trying the perspective thing again. Here it is: We're two lowlife characters sitting in the back of a car, waiting for a drug deal to go down. The deal is probably not going to end well. None of it makes a single bit of difference. Really, there's only what's happening this minute, the rest is all just foolish bodies walking around, filling their holes and making messes until they don't anymore. Take some here, leave some there. All the same. All this fussing and yelling, it's just animal noises. Quacking of ducks. Bleating of goats.

I imagine the barnyard noises and screw up my face to hold back another burst of laughter.

And again: I'm thinking, at the end of everything, we all go down the same hole. Imagine a toilet flushing. We work so hard not to get sucked down but we'll end up there anyway. Why do we try that hard? It's so silly. Swim around in the turds if you like, why not? Do the backstroke.

I laugh and laugh.

"No," she says, shaking a finger sternly. " _You_  are the silly one. Cease and desist this instant!" She holds the mock glare as long as she can before losing it and dissolving into hysterics.

Or. How about this: We're two people sitting next to each other in a car. We're complete strangers. Two people keeping secrets, getting stoned, and laughing. Having a nice time. Two people with howling black voids to fill. Two people with mussed hair, kissing, why not? Floating through the dark, with bright jagged outlines. Chilled and shivering. Touching hands. Skin. She's warm and damp, smelling of perfume and smoke, tasting like dried blood and sour wine. We're not overcome with laughter anymore and it's cool. None of it matters at all.

I run my hands up her arms, and the damaged, scarred places are are colder than the rest of her skin. Wispy black mist rising there. It's interesting, the lines and puckers and gouges, like a landscape under my fingers. So many different textures.

I trace a couple of the scars on her wrists. "What happened?" I ask.

"Some bad stuff a long time ago. I thought cutting would get it out of me."

Of course, bad stuff. I don't want or need the details. But I see it clearly - darkness like poison circulating underneath. It mixes with the filmy colors around her. I see where she's cut the escape routes for it, how it must have run out onto her skin. It's fascinating, like a painting, or a light show. I can't look away. I want to taste it. Oh, fuck. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

She looks at me intently. Touches my face. Traces my eyebrows with her finger. Hand on my cheek. "What's wrong with your eyes?"

Shit. "Uh, I had a little acid earlier this evening," I say. Stay cool. Not time yet.

She considers this. "Really, just a little?"

"Half a tab. Things are just sparkling a little." I can't tell if she believes me, though it's more or less true. Bright indistinct red and blue lines. Fragile bones inside skin. Blood and blackness pulsing together. Wine, acid, hash, sweat, kisses, bruises, scars.

"I like to do that sometimes," she says. "Take just a little. Then I lie down in the dark and watch the light on my eyelids and think about very deep and profound things." She halfway smiles. "They're never as profound the next day. It's a lark, really."

There's no freaking out happening. Either she can't see me that well, or my eyes have calmed down. We're good.

Her hands are on me, she's intertwining her fingers with mine. Her glowing yellow orange blue and red lines weaving into black. I don't want to look at her.

A tap at the window. A pale blue and gold face smiles at us. It's Jenna. She seems happier than before.


	5. Chapter 5

**Back again thanks to that cruel man TW. This isn't over.**

* * *

The existence of vampires may seem like magic, but it's not. There's no such thing as magic. Energy is never created or destroyed, but it can be passed from place to place, body to body. Sometimes we can't explain how it happens, but that doesn't make it magic or unnatural. We're here, aren't we?

* * *

Jenna gets in the front seat. Herrick hasn't returned yet. Her eyes are a little glassy but she's clearly in a good mood, and turns around to prop her elbows against the front seat and look back at me and Stephanie.

"It's great!" she says, "Your mate is making all the arrangements, and I didn't have to suck Freddy's cock. What could be better? When he gets back, we'll go home and celebrate! What've you two been up to?"

"Nothing much," says Stephanie, "just chatting, really."

To ease my discomfort, I look away and light a cigarette. My face is probably smeared with lipstick. Sitting in the car feels like we're inside a mouth. I'm trying to ignore the sensation that the seat is moving slowly up and down under us like a jaw chewing. I feel each of their heartbeats vibrating into the surroundings.

A vague understanding creeps across Jenna's face. Her eyebrows arch knowingly and she smiles and slowly shakes her head. "Thought we had the two of you sussed, John, guess we were wrong."

So that's all sorted. Still makes me laugh a little. "I have no idea what do you mean," I say, elbowing Stephanie playfully and giving her a meaningful look.

I pin her to the backseat by the shoulder and give her a slow, extravangant kiss. In spite of her shakes and sweats, I'm getting hungry and turned on. Herrick isn't back yet and we're in no hurry. I taste the skin of her neck where the vein is closest to the surface. The pulse is tempting me. Tug and shudder of anticipation. Shouldn't open my eyes now, so I pull away from her and hunch forward on the seat, elbows on knees, face in hands.

"What's wrong John?"

"Nothing, I'm fine, just a little dizzy. Think I need some air."

As I get out of the car I see Herrick emerging from a building. He scans quickly in one direction then the other, then strolls casually toward me. He gives a little smile when he gets close enough to see my face.

"Oh, Mitchell, you needn't have waited. We're all finished here."

"But you said-"

"You can have this back now." Into my hand, he puts the money I'd given him earlier. Then he starts cleaning something from under his nails. His color is high. I see how it is.

"Oh, come on! We drove all this way and now we're just going to turn round and head home? What about the girls in the car?"

He gives me his "thoughtful" look.

"Mmmm. Good point."

Jenna has rolled down the window and leans out. "William, thank you soooo much for dealing with Freddy. He can be so difficult."

"Was no trouble at all, love. It was a pleasure to be of assistance. A very satisfactory deal." There's that smile that shows all his teeth.

He gets back into the driver's seat. "Where to now, my dear?"

* * *

We pull up beside a big brick building. "You lot, hop out, I'll go park the car and meet you back here."

The two girls and I get out and Herrick drives away. Their flat is up two flights of stairs. It's clear they haven't lived here for very long: it's not very homey. The rooms are decorated with cheap art prints and batik throw pillows, and there aren't enough places to sit.

Stephanie can't wait to get inside.

She disappears into the bathroom. When she emerges five minutes later, her red and yellow zigzags are gone, transformed into gentle waves of peach and violet. Her twitchiness has calmed, and the blackness drifting just above her skin is transparent, as if it's been diluted.

"Oh, that is so much better," she says. "Come sit and have a drink and talk awhile."

I'm still standing in the narrow kitchen with my hands jammed into my pockets and my shoulders tensed. The light is a bit too bright and my head is spinning. I can't escape anywhere because Herrick's taken the car. I know he most likely wants me to kill these girls, but screw him. I'm enjoying the company.

* * *

_The night before I ship out, we meet in the park and sit on the ground, our backs propped against the wall. Our hands squeeze together so tightly her fingernails break the skin of my palm. There have been hundreds of thousands of nights like this; a young man says goodbye to his girl and neither of them know if he'll ever return. Maybe he sets her free, maybe he begs her to wait for him._

_Her blonde hair has come unpinned and is backlit by the moon. I lean to kiss her but she touches my face and holds it still. She traces a line down my forehead, down my nose, across my lips. I kiss her fingers, then - I can't help it - I drop my head and shut my eyes tightly but fail to hold back tears._

_She raises an eyebrow the way she does whenever she thinks I'm being too serious and says, "Johnny, how will you charm all the French whores with a face like that!" And her eyes are brimming too, as she gently wipes my damp cheeks with her hands, and pulls me to her._

_I cry, and hold her, and we need to be as close as our bodies can be, this last time. I devour her like I'm starving, my hands in her hair, on her back, I want my skin to touch hers, more, deeper, falling, rising. Moon angling into her cheekbone and casting a shadow that hollows her face. I rest my head in the place where her neck meets her shoulder and breathe her faint flowery perfume._

_After, we lie in one another's arms and weep. Our clothes are damp from the grass. As she pulls her jacket back on I see chafed pink skin below the collarbone where I'd mashed my face against her as if trying to burrow beneath the surface. Her neck has a small purple mark to remember me by, at least for a little while._

_"I can't promise I'll come back," I say. "I'll do my best. Don't forget me, please." I'm miserable and frightened and desolate._

_After I was turned one of the first things I did was tear up her picture._

* * *

Herrick and I are sitting on the angled sofa, one at each end. Stephanie's on the floor at my feet, her head propped on my knee. I stroke the side of her neck where the blood is close to the surface and feel it flowing, the current visible and glowing through her skin. She grasps my hand as it rests there and gives it a gentle squeeze. She's all peacefulness now, smooth under my touch like cool water. The room is spinning and shimmering and indistinct round the edges and she's a point of stillness at its center. Her calm has crept over me in gentle violet waves and settles my nerves. Her hair feels amazing, cool and warm at the same time, almost liquid.

Herrick is laying on the wild-eyed charm. Jenna's on his lap and he's telling jokes, doing his card tricks, and pulling coins from the air beside her ear. He gets up and plays deejay, announcing each song before setting the needle down, telling a story about each record, how he knows the producer, or who's stolen whose girlfriend or who got busted for which drug between recording which tracks. We hang around clubs a lot; he's made a point of getting to know those people.

Stephanie pulls out a handful of the joints that I rolled in the car and plops them on the coffee table, but Jenna says, "Why have those when you can have this?" and hauls out a big hookah. She fills it with flowery-smelling hash. We drink disgusting sweet cocktails with cherries in them. We're all shitfaced and giggling, even Herrick, who is still flushed bright pink and vibrating with energy. The whites of his eyes are showing all the way around the blue.

Time divides itself into brief, flashing, colorful moments. Stephanie's hand on my leg. Jenna, laughing at Herrick's jokes and feeding him cherries. Me, extracting a cigarette from the silver case and then fumbling to find a light and finally finding it. A drink spilling. Stephanie absently scratching her arm. Herrick, with a gleam in his goggle-eyes. "Enjoying yourself, John?"

My body feels like it's dissolving into the air. The boundary between me and my surroundings is fragile and transparent. Pieces of me are floating into separate corners of the room. I see the two of us from a distance, me sitting on the sofa, Stephanie on the floor leaning on my legs. I look down at the tops of everyone's heads. The coffee table is strewn with empty glasses, cherries, and cigarette butts. People's voices echo as if they are far away.

I curl my hands around the sides of Stephanie's neck and her slow, even pulse brings me back to myself. I must be pressing too hard, because she squirms uncomfortably and peels my fingers away. Then she looks up at me with a mischievous half-smile and a raised eyebrow, and brings my hand to her mouth. There's a delicate scrape of teeth on my skin. Her tongue explores my fingertips. Her lips are so warm. The sensation washes over me, surrounds me.

I bend to look at her and there is a haze of deep red drifting into the air from her lips where my fingers are touching them. A familiar mist clouds my vision, but this time it's shot through with ripples of violet. It doesn't force my eyes open and shove my fangs out. Instead, beginning with my hand, it wraps around me and pulls me into Stephanie's warm slick soft mouth, and I disappear into it. I am safe there. Forget horror and isolation. Forget Bristol. Forget lies and schemes. Forget blood. There is only this.

I open my eyes and she is only licking at my fingertips. She looks up. "You're not so bad," she says.

Thank you Stephanie. You have no idea what you've done for me.

Then I hear the sound of yawning and Jenna stands up and says she's ready for bed. Herrick moves as if to put his coat on and starts to say goodnight, and she touches his arm and says, "It's awfully late. Of course you two can crash here and head back to Bristol in the morning." He follows her to the bedroom. The door closes with a sharp finality that reminds me what I'm doing here.

I'm afraid I'm going to be sick.

"Are you okay?"

I want to tell her: Take Jenna and run. I need to go. You don't know what could happen.

I really don't want to go.

"I'm all right, just pretty wasted."

"Mmmmm. Me too. I'm feeling no pain." She sits beside me on the sofa and puts a hand on the back of my head, pulling me to her for a kiss. I'm not sure how much time passes. I take her hand and kiss the pulse point at the wrist, dark trails like smoke coiling from her scars. I follow them with my mouth and she shivers. The darkness tastes like violets and salt. I drink it until it stops pooling on her skin.

She looks amazed and a little frightened. "What did you just do?"

"I kissed you."

* * *

Stephanie makes up the folding bed, tucking a white sheet over the scratchy woolen blanket. She moves slowly, a serene look on her face, enjoying the task at hand. Her pupils are like pinpoints.

"This is where I sleep. But I can share." She turns off the light.

In the dark, I can't believe how gone I am. I lie there and the room spins into a black liquid spiral tapering to a thin stream and pouring itself into the center of my chest. I can't move. There's a rushing, scraping sound in my ears that couldn't possibly be the needle of the record player bumping again and again against the label of the last 45.

She slides beside me, emanating visible waves of black and violet and peach that vibrate outward in time with her heartbeat. She knows what I am, she's being reckless. No, she couldn't know. I can't tell. It doesn't matter. She's being pulled into the vortex.

I roll her onto her back. My face is on hers, it's sliding down to her breasts, near the blinding heart, I can taste the dark from it flying outward with each beat. I think there are sounds, like crying or gasping or howling. Is it me?

Her arm reaches around my waist and pulls me closer. As I start to drink from her, she strokes my hair. "Hey, don't be frightened. You're okay," she says. I pull away. My reflection is in her eyes. She sees the monster. I am wild-haired, black-eyed, fangs dripping, cheeks and chin smeared with her blood.

She really isn't feeling pain. And she reaches for me, strokes my back as I latch on to her neck and drink, and drink. I hold onto her desperately, drinking her darkness, taking it from her. Her hand slows and stops, lying limply in the small of my back.

Despite everything else, the smack in her blood makes me fall asleep almost immediately.


	6. Chapter 6

**BH characters belong to Toby Whithouse and BBC. Thanks again for letting me spend more time with them.**

* * *

We're all animals, it can't be denied. Vampires? Simple. We hunt humans because we need to. It's what we do.

Humans don't make sense. There are millions of them capable of tearing other humans limb from limb, forcing them to wallow for weeks in mud and shit before they drown in the muck or are blown to pieces, locking them in a room and exterminating them with poison gas, or dropping bombs from airplanes to flatten entire cities and towns and everyone living there. And on and on.

Anyone we take is spared horrors like that.

* * *

_This again._

_The light is too bright._

_My head hurts._

_How long have I been asleep?_

_Am I alone here?_

* * *

A strange flat. It's been practically demolished. Metallic smell of dried blood with a vague overlay of piss.

I don't remember much of anything. A long-finished record still spinning on the phonograph. Lampshades spattered with blood. Blood on the carpets. Blood on the bedclothes. On the walls. Upturned furniture. Smoke. Cherries spilled on the table. Clothing strewn everywhere.

A dead girl is lying on the floor. Her eyes are fixed and staring at the ceiling, blonde hair sticking out in all directions, shirtless, mangled. Last night is a blur but I remember that she was good. She was exquisite. Her scent is all over me. Taste of her still in my mouth. Deep, animal satisfaction.

In the hall there's another corpse. Herrick must have had her. Blood is ground into her knees and hands.

How did my trousers get here?

_Oh god oh god oh god._  Fragmented memories of teeth sinking into flesh, someone holding me, seeing what I was, inviting me in. Soft, dark and warm. Was I cruel and brutal to her? Was she frightened? Did she know?

* * *

There's a sound of running water. A toilet flushes. Fuck! I don't want to have to kill anyone else. I've had quite enough killing for one day. Several days. I flatten myself against a wall and look cautiously through the doorway.

Herrick emerges from the bath, fully dressed, picking his teeth, looking remarkably chipper. His satin waistcoat is immaculate. He says we're in London. Then says that we're on our own here with no backup, on account of him having offed someone's mum. Nice work, mate. Really nice. For fuck's sake, was this really necessary?

Want out of here. Soon.

Even better, thanks to the lack of plan, I am the cleanup detail. This is fucked.

"Do what you can."

Herrick toddles off to get the car. Doesn't even remember where he's left it. The door shuts behind him and it's very quiet.

I'm exhausted. Head full of cotton wool and static.

Jenna. That's her name, the one in the hallway.

Herrick ducks back in, giving me a start, saying he's forgotten his keys. Or maybe to check if I've begun the cleanup. I'm told to "get mopping," with helpful gestures to give me the correct idea.

Fancies himself a drill sergeant but he's a fucking schoolmarm.

* * *

I pick up the kitchen chair next to Jenna's body, set it in the middle of the floor in the hall, and rest, elbows on knees, head in hands, dislodging bits of dried blood from my hair, gathering myself. I'm not looking forward to this job.

There's a faint tap on my shoulder.

"John, what happened?"

When I look up, a girl is standing in front of me, twisting her foot against the floor like a child who needs to pee. Stiff blonde tangled hair. She's dressed in nothing but badly laddered nylons. Her throat is torn out. Her arms are crossed over a breast that's been savagely mutilated. Smeared in blood from her face to her thighs. I did that to her. She's a ghost.

"You've killed me, haven't you?"

Sound of footsteps behind me, and then a breeze past my ear and a slight sting as Jenna's ghostly hand connects with my face.

"You bastard! You've got some fucking nerve! Look at her! You ripped her to shreds!"

The other one looks her over. "You don't look so well yourself, love."

It's coming back now. The first ghost girl is called Stephanie.

Jenna isn't nearly as damaged as her friend, but there's a great, ragged laceration at her neck, and a fat stream of blood is still congealing as it leaks from the side of her head and drips down her shoulder and back. She is furious.

Shrieking wordlessly, she tries to hurl the telephone at me, but it's still wired to the wall, so it lands on the floor under the table. She throws a candy dish at me, an ashtray, my boots, liquor bottles, clothes, anything she can find. The floor is covered with broken glass and ripped clothes. I wait for her to stop. She collapses on the floor, sobbing.

I'm at a bit of a loss. Because we generally clear out from a kill as soon as we can, I don't usually have to deal with pissed off ghosts. This time, I'm stuck in their home with no way to leave. I wish I had a shirt on. I wish I had already washed the blood from my face and hands. Mostly I wish these ghosts weren't here. There's nothing I can say. Things can't be put right.

Now Jenna's standing, propping her elbow on the table where the phone had been. She gestures at her own lifeless body.

"That mate of yours bashed me over the head with a bottle! Then when I tried to get away, the son of a bitch laughed while he watched me crawl out of the room, waited til I couldn't move anymore, and ripped my throat out with his fucking teeth! Disgusting animals, both of you."

She continues to spew insults at me. I close my eyes and listen. Everything she says is true.

I get up and search the room for my shirt, mainly so I don't have to look at them.

"It's nothing personal," I say. "We just needed the blood." I'm aware that the words are completely horrific. My face is hot with shame.

"D'you think we care?" She stands back, crosses her arms in front of her, looks down and away in revulsion. The pitch of her voice rises and rises. "Do you think  _our mums_  care!"

I don't answer.

I say, "Excuse me, I have to clean up now." Then I go into the bath and splash water over my hair and face, scrubbing with my nails until I can't feel any more loose bits of water-soaked dried blood to scrape off my skin. I clean the blood from under my nails and pointlessly try to smooth down my hair.

When I come out, Jenna marches up to me and knees me, hard, in the groin. I'm more surprised than anything, but, ghost or not, she has managed to deliver enough force to make me hit the floor. She gives several swift kicks to my head and sides. I don't fight her. Since she's a ghost the impact isn't very great, but she is at it for long enough that there are bruises rising along my ribs.

I fix my eyes on a point where light glints from half of a broken 45 on the floor in the other room and let her hit me and kick at me over and over with bare bloody feet until she is spent from the effort. Despite all her fury I hardly feel anything. I wish it hurt more.

"Did that help?" I say. "Do you feel any better now?"

"A little." Her expression is grim and resentful. I can't blame her. "You're not even the one who killed me, just his little toady."

"Believe me when I say it's better that he's not here."

She sits on the floor leaning against the wall, very much like she had done last night after her fight with Robbie. Poor girl. About as bad a night as she could have, and now she's wound up dead. I feel a distant sense of sympathy for her like I would for an accident victim, which she is, after a fashion. The two of them could have been any other two girls in Bristol; it wouldn't have mattered.

I've pulled myself to a sitting position and plan to stay put until they're gone. There's no point in apologizing but I do anyway.

"I'm so sorry."

Jenna snorts with contempt.

Stephanie stands over me and shakes her head.

"I liked you," she says. There's disappointment in her voice, and shock, and outrage. Her eyes show bright blue against the dried blood covering her face.

I can't look at her. "I liked you too," I say to the floor.

She puts her hand on my shoulder and I turn so our eyes meet. She's a painful sight.

"When you first kissed me, I felt light as air. It was as if I had been pinned to the ground under a heap of sand and you lifted the weight from me, and I could move again. My mind was blown. It was like you could reach into me and take out the fear and sadness. I don't know how you did that.

"When I went to you later, you were gasping and shaking, surrounded with black. I wanted to help you.

"Then the black seemed to take you over, and your face changed. You wanted to take more from inside me. I felt a great wrenching and burning and ripping and I was laid open and it hurt but somehow I wanted it out, and you tore and tore until it was out of me, then everything was so light, I felt like was floating away and it got very cold. I was scared then, and I don't remember anything after that."

She turns from me and sinks to the floor, small and puzzled and sad, and wraps her arms around her knees. She must be remembering the cold, because she's shivering. Following some long-dormant instinct, I move close to her and put my arm over her shoulders. She's barely substantial against my bare skin.

Now I recall more of what happened last night: how we'd ended up together in the car; her playful laugh; the glow around her that changed from angry and jagged to calm and serene; the texture of her scars and how they had welled with black; how she'd been warm and sweaty; the feel of her mouth on me; her smell of cigarette smoke.

I lick my lips and taste her sweet narcotic blood. Even that trace of it makes me feel hazy and numb. She couldn't have suffered. I did as well as I could, given the circumstances.

"Freddie doesn't know where I went. I wanted to leave. I hated it - he'd make all the girls give him blowjobs before they could score, and sometimes he passed me around to his friends, but he had the money and the skag and kept me hooked. He kept threatening to kill me if I left him. I came to stay with Jenna because I was ready to try and kick. I was afraid he would find out I was here and do something awful to us.

"I can't believe it ended up being you and not him."

Jenna has been listening. "Why _can't_  you believe it? Look what his mate did to me. Look what he did to  _you_. He's a sick, filthy, cold-blooded monster."

Stephanie looks down at her own mutilated body and recoils at the destruction. She feels her face and neck, and her hands catch on the torn edges of her wounds. Her fingers sink into the injury at her throat. She shudders. Under its film of dried blood her face goes grim and cold.

"Fucking hell, why am I being nice to you? Why am I even speaking to you?"

_Idiot._ Of course I'm seriously the last person in the world who should be trying to comfort her. She pushes away from me and turns her back.

It takes some time to realize that the hollow sinking ache in my chest is because I'm grieving. I don't want Stephanie to be dead. I want her colors and textures and smells. I want to roll a cigarette and light it for her. I want to flirt with her and make her smile. I want to bury my face in her hair, to take off her clothes and feel her body moving with mine, because she wants to and I want her to and for no other reason.

Instead, she invited me in, and I killed her. That's what monsters do.

Jenna says to Stephanie, "Look, there's nothing else worth saying to him. He's a waste of space and I think he knows it. Anyhow, this flat looks like hell. Let's get out of here."

Their door appears in the wall. It's battered metal, painted gray, with a small window reinforced with iron mesh.

For a second, the hall is full of light from the open door. There's a hollow, rushing sound, and the click of a latch falling into place, then everything is quiet.

* * *

I suppose Herrick's idea is that somehow we'll load the rubbish and bodies into the car, take them back to Bristol to be dealt with, and the place will look like nothing happened. I'm skeptical, but I have my orders.

I try not to think. Do what needs doing. Concentrate on tidying up. Roll up my sleeves. Set things right. Wrap up the bodies. Sweep away the clutter. Hoover up the shattered bits of glass and plastic, spilled peanuts, hanks of hair. Smooth out the covers. Straighten the picture frames. Wipe everything down. Pay attention the rhythm of the work, only that. My fingertips wrinkled from the soapy water.

As much as I can, I wash away the traces of evidence. Chaos becomes order. Pour the blood-tinged water down the drain.


	7. Chapter 7

**This is some negative space in a very familiar story. The subsequent chapter will color a little further outside the lines.**

**Thanks again to BBC and TW and everyone involved for letting us spend more time in the BH world.**

* * *

I'm never angry at them. They are all performing their part in the dance, round and round and back and forth, faster and slower but always turning, leading, following, right up to the end which is always the same. When I consume a life it is gone: never to be shared or held, maybe to be remembered for a while and grieved.

Put a different record on, somebody.

* * *

I'm ready to leave. The flat is not perfect but its at least a little less awful. It'll have to do.

I put on my jacket and tie and head out. Thoughtlessly I grab a pint of milk that's just been delivered, and a girl is coming out to get it, so I am still holding it when I have to dive into her flat to avoid the policemen thundering up the stairs.

Shit shit shit shit. I just want to be somewhere still and out of the way. Instead I'm clamping a hand over this girl's mouth to keep her quiet. Her tiny crucifix burns my eyes, and I make her take it off. When she asks me why, I realize she's going to be difficult to handle.

It would be an understatement to say I'm not in the mood for this.

Police knock on the door and the girl tells them she's seen nothing. Good girl.

She's brunette and pretty, in a flowered mini dress. Her false eyelashes make her eyes look enormous.

She fixes me with those wide serious blue eyes. "You're a killer."

This flat looks like she has a life here. There are shelves full of books and LPs, posters on the walls, knicknacks and family photos on the mantlepiece. I think of the flat upstairs: Stephanie's stack of 45s lying scattered and broken on the floor, the cheap cotton tapestries tossed over the battered furniture, the collection of empty liquor bottles on the mantle. I wonder how well she knew her neighbors.

I let her go to the toilet. She comes out and I find she has written "help" on the window in lipstick. I have to tie her up so she doesn't try anything else. The clever ones are always trouble.

As I am working on the knots, she starts asking me questions. I don't like it. She seems to think I'm vaguely ridiculous.

"Why did you do it? You must have had a motive. No-one kills without a motive. You didn't even know those girls, did you?"

I don't want to be talking about this. Should I tell her I only killed one of them? Did I know her? She was damaged and kind. She had blonde hair with dark roots. Scars. She left her drug dealer boyfriend to get clean. A violet and peach halo. Taste of flowers and smoke and salt and blackness. Stephanie. She could have been anyone.

"I didn't need to know them." I close the door, then check the window to see if Herrick is back yet. He's not, but there are several police cars parked outside, not going anywhere soon. I'm trapped here.

"They were in a bar, they were up for a party, and now they're dead. Tomorrow I won't even remember what they looked like."

"I don't believe you. Even if you said you enjoyed it, it would make more sense."

The questions go on and on. Am I a disappointment to my parents? How many people have I killed? Is this really what I'm like or is it an act?

I sit on the sofa to escape her critical and slightly condescending stare. If she's tied up why am I the one who feels like a bug on a pin?

She says she's not afraid of me. For everything I say, she has a scathing response. I'm starting to get exasperated.

"Do you know what else I think? No-one's even asked you this before."

When would anyone ask? There are no witnesses who survive.

She is picking away at me, taunting, probing. I don't know why I feel compelled to keep speaking to her. Her eyes fix on me like floodlights. My nerves are raw, my head aches, and everything feels unreal and out of focus. I'm barely holding it together. Question after question. I can't bear it. I'd rather be kicked and beaten.

"I had to kill them, ok? I didn't have a choice."

"That's the first thing you've said I actually believe. You have to kill them, but you don't really want to."

Stop talking stop talking shut up shut up you smug bitch. And fuck you. Don't really want to? As if this is an inconvenient hobby? This is me: A vicious bloodsucking killer. A murdered soldier. An orphan. Beg for fucking mercy. Please. I don't know what I'll do if you don't.

Don't say any more.

I'm almost blind with rage as I shove the gag in her mouth. She looks down and away, but she knows she's reached me. I have to leave the room and regroup. Clouds of red are creeping into the borders of my vision.

This is taking far too long.

* * *

In the kitchen I make myself a cup of tea and try to calm down. She's shaken something loose. I feel dislocated. I should just kill her now, but we might need her alive if there's a standoff.

_You have to kill them._

_You don't really want to._

_You have to_. Who has to?

_You don't want to_.

I don't really want to. What do I want? Blood?

Holy fuck. Do I have to? Suddenly I don't know. Not knowing feels like shedding a skin; I'm wrenched and torn and twisted and exposed. The hungry red tint in the air is replaced with a bright silvery mist that hurts my eyes. The room is so cold. I can't feel my feet. I have to grip the wall to steady myself until I can regain my balance.

The midday sun filters through the windowshades and fills the room with gentle yellow light. I let the heat from the thin china cup warm my hands as I check the scene outside. Policemen are milling about, talking on radios, making notes, getting in and out of cars. They aren't leaving.

From the other room, there's a creaking sound. The front door's been left wide open and she's gone. There are heavy footsteps coming up the stairs and I hear her say "Help me, he's in my flat!" No escape. The cup slips from my hand and shatters. I'm expecting the worst.

In pounds Herrick in a police uniform, looking very proud of himself indeed. The girl points at me.

"That's him!"

"What took you so long?" I say.

"I had to get a uniform just to make it through the front door."

She looks from me to Herrick, then runs for it. He catches her by the hair and throws her to the floor.

He rolls his eyes in mock despair at my lack of knot-tying skills.

She sits on the floor against the wall, cowering. I almost wish she'd escaped.

* * *

Herrick has frightened her. Now she truly understands she's angling for her life. She asks if I can be the one to kill her.

I nod an agreement while the knife twists. She knows, she knows, she knows: _I don't really want to_. It comes to that.

I've finished tying her hands and feet. Reef knots. I'm almost out the door.

"Mitchell, wait. Please. This is between us. It'll never leave this room. I know you're not like him. You want this to end."

Oh, Christ. All the fight goes out of me. I can't hide from her anymore: I confess that I'm afraid to stop. I tell her what happens. I remember them all, I'm with them again, and I'm terrified. They all ask why, and I want to weep. I kill with one mind and repent with the other. I need it. I hate it. The light shifts and I'm a monster. It shifts again and I'm just a miserable, trapped, nervous bloke in a suit.

"Have you ever tried to stop?"

For a long moment I search for words to answer the question. I can't find any. She takes that for yes.

"Would you like to try again?"

I watch her for what seems like a long time. The floor seems to fall away and I'm standing over a great black emptiness, suspended by some inexplicable belief that gravity won't take me.

"I don't know. Like I said, it's complicated."

"Why? Why is it complicated?" She just won't quit. I am starting to admire that.

"Do you really want to know why we do it? The real reason?" I gather myself. This is unbelievably difficult, far harder than killing her would be. I sit on the bed beside her but look at the wall, the ceiling, anything but her. I wish I were invisible.

"The monster - it's not a metaphor. It's real. Herrick and I, we're... we're vampires."

I let the word sit while I look out the window at the police cars below. I listen while her heart beats several times in the quiet. Her mouth tightens around the corners. A few more heartbeats. Beside me, her shoulders tense and she leans away from me as far as she's able.

When she speaks again, she's trying to pull herself further away from me.

"You're telling me that you killed those girls upstairs to drink their blood?"

I thought I couldn't feel any worse but I was wrong. I can't look at her, but I'm sure I can I feel her staring in disbelief. I fold my arms tightly against my body.

"Herrick killed one of them. Like you said: No-one kills without a motive." I stare at the pretty silk scarves I've used to tie her wrists and ankles.

A long silence.

"Are you planning to drink my blood?"

This close to her, she smells of sweat and soap and hairspray. I think about teeth puncturing and then sliding through skin and the warm rush of blood running out. I think about burying my face in her neck and drinking deeply. My body relaxes.

"No."

"Why are you still here? Why didn't you just turn into a bat and fly away then?"

"We can't turn into bats. I wish we could. That would save us loads of trouble.

Look, I didn't ask to be this way, but it's what I am now. We kill because need the blood. Or, we want it. I don't know which. The girls up there, the only thing they did wrong was let us in. It was just bad luck. They didn't deserve it."

I curl my fingers into my hair and pull. It keeps me from dissolving into nothing.

"Nobody deserves that, Mitchell, whatever the reason."

"I know."

"Fairy story or not, it needs to stop. "

"I know."

"Okay. I'll make it simple for you. Do you want to kill me?"

"No."

"Then don't."

"I'll do what I can. I have to go."

I leave the room, carefully shutting the door behind me. In my mind, I'm trying over and over to come up with a scenario where this girl doesn't end up dead.

* * *

Herrick's about to clap me in irons and march me out of the apartment. That police uniform is his favorite trick yet. I'm betting that there's no way he wants to get it dirty on the way out of here. I give myself even odds that this will work.

"Er, oh, now, what about that girl?" he asks me.

I'm almost amused. He's going to hate this. I try to sound as offhand as possible. "Oh she's cool, she won't say anything."

"Well, if you don't have the stomach for it..."

"Herrick, Herrick, it's fine. She's cool. Seriously. I have it sorted." I watch as his eyes harden at me. Good.

* * *

He is is so wired on speed that he can barely blink, and he's winding himself up for a lecture. This will be another "vampires are better than humans" speech. He thinks if he keeps repeating these things to me I'll eventually believe them.

He says we're through the looking-glass, and we're to do the opposite of what humans would do. That, for vampires, mercy is wrong and conscience is a lie.

He reminds me of our deal, in France, when he killed me. He could've taken me outright, bargain or no. He could've killed everyone. Christ, I almost wish he had. He asks me if I thought about why he did it.

The best thing to do is play dumb. "No. I haven't."

He says he sees in me a great man. A terrible man. An orphan-maker. A breaker of hearts. I don't know who he's talking about.

Oh wait, of course I know.

Herrick firmly believes he's given me a gift, and is frustrated that I don't appreciate it. For more than fifty years he's been trying to make me over in his own image. For more than fifty years I've made my best effort to love him for it. I can't. I understand that I don't want to stay with him any longer. I can't keep killing everyone who makes me feel less alone.

"Now go and kill. That. Girl."

* * *

As I enter the room I don't know what I'm going to do. The angry red haze is building, my body hollows itself out, and my eyes are showing all black.

Before, to her, I was just some weird skinny bloke who tied her up and claimed to be scary. She didn't believe me. Now she sees the rest of me and is afraid. Her scream of horror brings me back to myself. For a second I stand there and blink, then I tell her to keep screaming. My eyes are still black and she seems not to want to stop. Good.

I clap my hand over her mouth, stifling the noise enough for me to whisper in her ear: "I want you to hide. If there's a dark corner in the closet, stay there. If there's a hidden alcove, even better. Then be quiet. Don't come out until we're gone. It should be soon. Wait for awhile after you're sure." Then I untie her.

"Now hide. Don't make a sound."

I emerge from the room and close the door behind me.

"It's done," I say. "I tried to keep things tidy."

My jaw is tense with exertion and I hope he doesn't notice. He wants to believe I've learnt his lesson and taken it to heart. _Don't check on the bedroom don't check let's go let's go._  To my immense relief he doesn't check. Instead, he handcuffs me and leads me out to a police car and drives us home.


	8. Chapter 8

**This is the penultimate chapter of the story. Thanks again to the BH writers and cast, and to TW and BBC, all of whom brought these wonderful characters to life. Readers, I'd love to hear what you think - corrections, critiques, complaints, comments.**

* * *

_"How many people have you killed?"_

_"Don't know. It's hard to say. More than a hundred, less than a thousand."_

_"No remorse? And does this make it easier to do it? This, what is it, this role that you play..."_

In my mind I replay the conversation over and over. She knows my name. Why didn't I kill her?

* * *

It's been a couple of days since we got back to Bristol. I've been avoiding Herrick. Though he'll never admit it, he knows the London adventure was his mistake, and I think he's been trying to stay clear of me as well. I've spent the past few days keeping to myself, walking and thinking.

Right now I'm in bed listening to the traffic go by. It's drizzling and almost dark. As each car goes by, there's a sound like the static between radio stations, and irregular overlapping squares of light slide across the walls. Out of nowhere, Stephanie appears before the window, whole and pretty. The angles of mixed light and shadow slide across her body, revealing rosy cheeks, a gentle smile, a flowing black cotton blouse.

She sits on the bed and strokes my hair and says, "John don't be frightened. You're okay."

I wish it were true. I want to close my eyes, let go, and give myself over to her touch, but I know what's next. Her rosy cheeks go dead bluish-white. Blood wells up from beneath her skin and runs down her face and body. Her clothes fall away and her flesh shreds itself until she's nothing but the mangled corpse I made of her. Peach and violet fog ooze from her wounds onto the floor at her feet. Oily black smoke pours from her empty eye sockets and eventually consumes her face and cascades down her body, dissolving it until there's nothing left of her.

It's starting. I wrap myself in blankets, shut my eyes tightly and curl into a fetal position. For several minutes I lie there, shuddering. There's no safety, no solace, only this wretched isolation. I don't want to fall asleep because the dreams will be much worse than this. And round I go again.

* * *

I've resigned myself to staying awake and am digging about in the cluttered room for some wearable clothes when there's a rude banging at the door.

"Mitchell! Haul your arse out here!" It's Seth and Marco, with their charming invitation to go out.

"Wait a blasted second!" I finish getting dressed, attempt to smooth my hair down, and meet them in the hallway.

We end up at some run-down bar. I'm not exactly with them, more alongside them, because they think it's hilarious to dress up like skinheads: jeans rolled at the ankle, work boots, collared shirts, braces. It's great cover for them to make trouble when the mood strikes them. I have no interest in mayhem for mayhem's sake - I think it's imbecilic - so I'm in civilian clothes, sitting near the door, smoking. Through the open door, a streetlamp illuminates the occasional drops of rain that disturb the surface of puddles in the road.

There's an old man sitting at the other end of the bar. His nose and cheeks are mottled pink, the features blurred and flattened with age, bright-pink skin showing between the strands of sparse white hair. He's hunched over a small collection of empty glasses, pints and shots. When he lifts his drink I see that he's missing the last two fingers on his right hand. It could have been a farm accident, but the set of his jaw, the guarded, distant look in his eyes, and the bitter lines etched from the corners of his mouth tell me that it wasn't. His droopy grey mustache follows those lines all the way down his face, outlining his blocky chin.

Seth, who's standing at the same end of the bar, points at the man."Hey, Marco, look, it's a fucking walrus! He's even got flippers!"

His stupid giggle carries to the other side of the room. He's extremely pleased with himself. Jesus, he's an idiot.

The old fellow looks sideways across the bar at me as if trying to enlist a witness. I avoid his eyes. His skin is starting to flush red with annoyance. The frown lines deepen and the brows lower, hooding his sharp blue gaze.

"The world is already too ugly to be adding more ugliness to it." He gets up stiffly and limps out the door. Seth and Marco follow him to the street. I follow, but stand just outside the doorway. I don't really want to watch but it's impossible to look away.

Seth grins. "Oh yeah, I'll show you ugly, mister walrus. Wanna see my tusks?"

The man draws himself up. "Get away from me, you scum. Go back to the hole you crawled out of."

"Maybe we'll take you there with us," drawls Marco.

"If you're trying to pick a fight with me, look elsewhere, I'm not interested. Go beat up a hippie, or whatever it is you do for fun."

"This is plenty of fun right here." Without warning, Seth punches the old man in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. While he's bent double, Marco knocks the man's head back with a couple of brutal jabs to the face.

When he looks up he's bleeding from both nostrils and one eye is swollen shut.

"You people disgust me," he mumbles through broken teeth.

Marco puts his hand to his forehead in mock upset.

"I think he's hurt my feelings, Seth. What ever should I do?"

I'm riveted to the spot. I don't notice the rain on my face. Marco licks the blood from his knuckles. His eyes open black.

"You poor sod. Let me help you make it all better." Seth easily hoists the old man against the wall of the building and begins to feed. My body responds to the sight involuntarily: reddening vision and a swirling black hunger.

"Hey, Seth, don't get greedy. There's three of us, remember?" Marco waves me over. "Mitchell, care to join us? You look interested."

The man is suffering, terrified, unable to speak, eyes full of horror. Half of his throat is just gone, ripped away. Blood runs from the corner of his mouth.

"Sorry, mate, you're done for," I whisper to him. "I'll make it quick." There's barely any blood left in him, but I finish it off. A well-practiced act. It'll hold me for a while.

We drag him into an alley and get out of there as fast as we can. Nobody wants to risk being stuck making excuses to a ghost, especially when it's raining. Someone will come back later to take care of the mess.

Later, I drop my bloodstained clothes on a chair. I'm so tired of this. I stand in the shower and watch the brown-tinted water flow down the drain.

* * *

It's the third day in a row that I've left roses on the steps. I've written on each card, "I am so very sorry. Please help me. Mitchell." Each day she picks them up and brings them inside. Does she take them in and water them, or throw them directly into the bin?

Today I've waited until she's about to come in, so she sees me leave the flowers. Whatever happens, it isn't up to me. I can only beg for mercy.

"Help me."

She looks a bit exasperated, but not surprised to see me.

"Why should I?"

I want to say, it's been more than fifty years since I've heard a kind word, a touch, a laugh, from someone who isn't dead now. Since I kissed someone without lying to her. Since a touch became a weapon. I want to say that I've forgotten what joy is like outside of the bestial satisfaction of a blood drunk. No-one knows me now. I'm floating in a space between lives, with no way to go back and no way to go forward. It's been over fifty years since anyone cared for me, wept for me, even remembered who I was.

I don't tell her. It doesn't matter to her. None of it really matters. We're all circling the drain anyway. Eventually we'll be pulled to the bottom.

_I just want ... not this_.

"Because I can't help myself."

She gives me a long, long searching look, then a barely perceptible nod. Gravity has reversed and I feel like I'm floating. I can't believe she's agreed to help me. I choke back an astonished laugh.

"I don't even know your name."

"It's Josie."

* * *

She takes my hand and leads me into the flat. It looks the same as I remember: cluttered but clean, a beaded curtain in the kitchen doorway, yellow windowshades, walls lined with books and records, dance posters and harlequin masks on the walls. I don't see the roses anywhere.

I sit on the sofa. Although it's not cold, I am shivering as if I'd just been pulled from freezing water. I wrap my arms tightly around my body and lean forward in an effort to be still. She pulls her chair close and puts her hand on my shoulder. The slight weight of it calms me enough that I can meet her eyes. She has an almost clinical look of concern.

"What do you think I can do for you? How can I help you?"

The words tumble out.

"Right now, just listen. Please. I'm so lost, Josie. I want you to know me. There's no reason you should want to, but I'm asking, please, I don't want to keep bringing pain and terror wherever I go. I never wanted that, but it happened, and now it's all I know. I need to find another way."

_Really, why should she help me? It isn't her battle. This is nothing but grace. I can only be thankful._

"I don't know what I can offer you in return. Gratitude. Devotion. Someone to empty the bins and do the washing up.

"And please, listen. I need to tell you my story.

"No-one but Herrick knows anything about me. He made me for his own purposes, so I've belonged to him.

"I've been a vampire for more than fifty years now. I was a soldier. I was turned during the Great War. Mitchell is my surname. My given name is John. It's not me anymore; I haven't been called that since I enlisted. I'd seen plenty of combat before Herrick took me. That's all I want to say about it."

"So how old are you?"

"I was twenty-four then. So I'm ... seventy-six."

"You'll never look any older?"

"No. We look like we did when we were taken. I think. that's what I'm told. We can't use mirrors, so I can't be completely sure."

"Why not?"

I demonstrate: I take her hand, we walk into the bathroom. Alone in the mirror, she nods solemnly.

"How do you shave?"

"Very carefully. You learn. And we heal quickly, so that helps." I think I see the slightest smile.

I explain a bit about the organization, how we straighten one another's ties, choose clothing, give haircuts. She's a bit incredulous. I don't blame her.

"Would you need me to do that for you? If you don't have your mates around?"

I'm embarrassed. This is harder than I'd ever imagined. I've thought through some, but not all of the logistics of this.

"Er, I might. If it's not too much trouble... but tell me about you."

"I have a quiet life. I go to work, I come home, I like to read and knit and listen to music. I studied world history at Uni. I'm a dancer and I teach dance to children as well, which pays my rent between gigs. I'm between gigs now..."

Her voice trails off. I'm accustomed to tuning out people when they talk about themselves. The more I know about them, the worse I feel about killing them. I'm trying to overcome the impulse to glaze over by watching her face intently. I want to learn all about her.

With a pained expression, she edges away from me. "Don't look at me like that, please. It scares me."

Clearly I have other things to learn as well, like how to not frighten her. She gets up and I follow her into the tiny kitchen, where she gestures at the small table in front of the window.

"Sit here. I'll make you some tea. I'd like to find out more about what's going on here."

After she's put the water on, she sits at the table across from me and fixes me with that forthright look.

"So, I never thought you were serious when you said how many people you'd killed. Were you? Honestly, what have you done?"

I look down at the table and fidget with my rings. Normally I never fidget.

"So many bad things. I've been a killer for a very long time. If you really want to know about it, I will tell you. You'll beg me to stop talking."

"You can talk about it if you need to. I won't like it, but I'll listen. And you think you can give up killing?"

"I hope so. If you'll help me. What really helps is that I can't stand the thought of what it must look like to you."

"I'll tell you what it looks like." She extends a finger with each statement, like she's counting. "You broke into my flat and took me hostage. You told me some unbelievable story about having killed hundreds of people, then an even more ridiculous story about a hungry monster making you afraid to stop. You seemed trapped, like a prisoner.

"Somehow I got the idea I could help free you if you wanted it. This might be the most foolish thing I've ever done. I've probably got a death wish or something. I just figure you'd have killed me already if you were planning to.

"Also: I like you."

She gets up and brings back two mugs, gives me one, and sits back down at the table with her own.

"So, do you remember what it was like when you first became a vampire? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. But I'd really like to know."

I wrap my hands around the warm mug and let the steam rise into my face. I want to be as truthful as I can be. It takes me a long time to answer.

"Cold. The first thing I remember is feeling cold and seeing nothing but black. Then I drifted up through what seemed like layers of dark mist toward a tiny pinpoint of light above. The pinpoint got bigger and bigger like I was rising up from a deep hole into broad daylight.

"Then it hurt so much it was unbelievable. Imagine having all of your bones ripped out through your skin. I passed out from the pain.

"When I awoke I felt hollow, just skin surrounding vapor in the shape of a body. I got used to that feeling. It's the blood that makes me feel solid."

She raises her eyebrows and leans forward. "What does it feel like, to drink someone's blood?"

"Like the best drug there is. Like food and sex and energy and power. Imagine drinking life itself. Transubstantiation is bullshit. Wine is wine and blood is blood.

"In a way, all blood is holy to us. Vampires have cut out the middle man."

* * *

It's 1918. We're still at war. I've been travelling with Herrick and his mates for a few months now. Feeding has been easy; we follow groups of retreating soldiers, and most of the time we find horribly wounded men who don't fight us: men torn in two, men with faces shot off, men with limbs pointing in impossible directions. If I were one of them, I know I would be grateful for death.

I'm no longer shocked at the number of ways a body can be damaged by flying metal. Freshly torn flesh and screams of anguish make me hungry. Today I fed from a sandy-haired, green-eyed boy missing both legs above the knees, but I didn't understand his last mumbled words because they were in German. He wasn't quite enough. Sometimes we must feed from several men because most of the blood has already soaked into the ground.

Tonight we are camped in a half-destroyed church somewhere in Flanders: Herrick, me, Seth, a short stocky dark-haired bloke called Allen. We've just lost Harvey, who was feeding in a trench when a shell burst in it, so we might recruit tomorrow. Bombing has destroyed whatever it is in churches that would have prevented us from entering this one. We've built a fire on the stone floor. All of us could do with a wash and a shave, so we've filled a tin with snow and set it beside the fire to melt.

We've all fed well, and Seth and Allen are already asleep. Herrick's eyes glisten bright blue in a bristly face smeared with blood and grime. Being in a church makes him philosophical. He speaks in the same mock-inquisitive tone he uses when he's trying to impart some nugget of vampire wisdom that he's sure I'll need.

"Did you ever think Jesus was a vampire? He offered his blood to all his disciples. Drink it, and you'll have life everlasting. What's that sound like to you, Mitchell? Sounds awfully familiar to me."

This is part of his program of undermining every human belief I've ever held. Maybe if I pretend to be asleep I'll be spared this conversation. I fold my knees up under my tattered blanket, put my head down, and think about what a relief it is that I've consumed some residual body heat, and how grateful I am that vampires don't attract lice.

Herrick moves to sit closer to me. He is much warmer than I am.

"He was temporarily dead, they took him off that cross and he rose..." He speaks more and more slowly and forcefully, punching his fist into his other palm: " _Right..._ " (punch)  _"Back..._ " (punch)  _"Up!_ " (punch).

His voice is rising in pitch and becoming more insistent.

"All they had to do was replace the drinking of actual blood with a fairy story about magic wine. Maybe _we're_  the blood descendants of Jesus, and those playacting children out there just don't realize it yet.

"I saved you with my blood, didn't I?"

He wants to know that he has my attention. His finger traces slowly down my cheek, then he grips my chin and gently pulls up until I meet his gaze. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen. His voice is soft and full of malice but wrapped in a smile.

"What do you make of that, Mitchell?"

It's fucking insane. I look at him for a second or two.

"Dunno."

* * *

I am somewhere I have never been before. There's a girl giving me tea and holding my hand and looking into my eyes and I have no secrets. I'm terrified.

"What else do you want?" she asks.

"I don't know. I'm so poisoned and broken, how can I stop?"

"I'm sure I can't tell you. How could I know?"

"Why  _did_  you let me in?"

She squeezes my hand. I know it's meant for reassurance but it's an alien feeling for me. I have to suppress the urge to form my fingers into a fist.

"I saw you change," she says. "And I don't mean... I mean you heard me. It meant something to you, what I said. That made me care for you a little."

_She fucking asked me to kill her and I as much as said yes. How could she care for me?_

"I was horrid to you."

"You were." Her eyes drop.

"I could have killed you."

"You didn't, Mitchell," she says hotly. She looks up into my face. Her mouth is set in a determined line. "You listened. I can't imagine what that cost you."

I study the tabletop. "I'm not sure yet."

"Are you in danger? Your friend Herrick, does he know you're here?"

"He knows I'm not there. That's all he needs to know."

"Will he come after you?"

"I don't know. If he does I won't let him get anywhere near you. Since he's the one who made me a vampire, he does have a claim on me."

"What kind of claim?"

"Like a father to a son, or maybe a master to a slave. Somewhere in between, I guess. He taught me how to live this life. There's a community. There are rules and traditions. I'm breaking them now."

For a while we sit at the small table by the window and don't say anything. I want to fall into her, press up against her, forget everything, make the past disappear. Leave behind the noise and horror and... and blood. I hope to God I can do it. She holds my hand in both of hers.

"I've seen this monster you keep talking about," she says. "It is hurting you. I'm willing to try and help you. _It_  may be bloodthirsty and cruel, but _you_  are not."

Her voice is soft as she strokes the back of my hand absently, like she's soothing a child. Her fingertips are so warm. This tiny girl would stand between me and carnage. I imagine how her face would go cold if she were to witness the things I've done. How could I possibly allow that?

Even in the dark, with my eyes closed, I feel her gaze. It steadies me. I picture burying the monster in the ground and grinding my boot heel into the dirt above it. I ignore its muffled howls of protest. Stay there, you filthy abomination.

* * *

It's just two people here, Josie and me, all alone.

I press her against the wall and kiss her. She kisses me back. Only me.

She reaches for me and pulls me close. Her fingers are in my hair and over my back and I am on her, she kisses and bites me, she is on me, the clothes are in the way, we take them off. She's warm against my chest. She's invited me in. I enter.

Oh God. Hunger.

She sees my blackened eyes, my fangs extending, and takes my face in both hands, very close to hers.

"No," she says. "You don't do that. Let's do this instead."

Her hands reach into my hair and pull me to her. She kisses me full on, her tongue exploring delicately between my distended teeth, then pushing further and further until I meet her halfway.

She keeps hold of me. I am still here. I am here.

We are here, together and I don't need anything other than this.


	9. Chapter 9

**This is the last chapter of the story. Love to hear any feedback, criticism, information, correction, or questions that you feel like sharing. I've loved writing this, and loved the way it's allowed me to engage with the world Toby Whithouse has created.**

**I'm so grateful to all the people, writers, actors, crew involved in creating Being Human for allowing me to spend this time with the wonderful characters and stories, and thank you to the wonderful people in the BH fandom, especially SunnyFla, for your support and patience as I learn how to do this. Love to you all.**

xxx

-Fleem

* * *

**_Dancers learn that the body has laws of its own to be respected though tamed, that morality is a choice not only of conscience but of the body, for the body, by the body._**  - Toni Bentley

* * *

Electricity arcs like silk against tortoiseshell. Sparks sting behind my eyes.

We lie twined around each other, limp and slick and spent. Behind the half-raised window shade it's almost dark out, a stripe of golden-pink at the bottom edge of the sky, shading abruptly to deep purple-black above.

I bury my face in her tousled hair as she sleeps, her body warm against mine. I'd like to settle into this moment and stay here always, but something is wound tight inside me like a trap about to be sprung. It's not safe for her. I move away and sit at the edge of the bed.

"I have to go now."

"Why?"

"It's been several days since I last fed. The hunger is coming back. I don't want to hurt you."

She sits up and rakes her hair out of her eyes.

"So face the damned alternative, Mitchell. You don't want to go back to that life. We both know it."

I get up and pull on my trousers. This is not a conversation I want to be having naked. Josie is sitting up in bed cross-legged with the sheet tucked around her. I turn my back to her.

It's only a faint gnawing sensation at the moment, but it will get worse. Anxiously, I pace the room.

"I don't know what could happen. I won't be in my right mind. If I leave I may kill someone. If I stay I may kill you, or I may die. I just know if I don't feed I'll get very … unstable... and you shouldn't have to deal with it, so I should go. I'll find someplace safe."

"This  _is_ someplace safe. Don't go. Let me help you." Her tone is both pleading and irritated.

I can't put her through this. "It's too much to ask of you." I shake my head and turn away.

She throws off the sheet and comes to face me, naked. She puts her hand on my shoulder to stop me pacing and her dark blue eyes are stern and determined and trusting. It's cold enough in the room that her bare skin is covered in goosebumps.

"Look at me," she says. "Have you hurt me yet?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"No, of course I don't." It's true. This has nothing to do with her. I want her more than blood. "But do you have any idea how dangerous this is?"

Her mouth tightens. "I have some idea. You'll need to cooperate."

I say I'll stay. I don't know if it's the right thing to do.

Still shirtless, I sit on the little sofa with my forehead resting on my knees. She's in a long silky dark blue dressing gown, sitting beside me. I'm growing agitated and she is rubbing my back in an attempt to calm me down. I try to concentrate on the sensation of her fingers on my bare skin as they press in circles across the tense places between my shoulder blades and spine. I've never allowed anyone to touch me this way. It feels good, but it won't prevent what's about to happen.

The hallucinations begin before the pain does.

_I see the old man from the bar, but he's young, in uniform, his walrus mustache and hair both light brown and full. He's limping and his hand is bleeding. He calls for help. Bullets whiz overhead and raise splashes of mud where they land. We both automatically hit the dirt. I clamber on knees and elbows over to him. My instinct is to go and patch him up and get him to a medic. When I get close to him the smell of blood is too much and I tear his throat out._

_"Disgusting," he says as he dies._

* * *

I shake my head from side to side and rub my eyes to erase the sight of him.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. I'll be all right."

"You're shaking."

"I'm okay."

"No you're not."

* * *

_Body heat, a whiff of hash and violets. A pale purple glow in the air. I relax a little._

_Stephanie, thin and pale, sits beside me on the sofa, going into a nod, her eyes half-closed. "Don't be sad, Johnny," she mumbles. Black fluid runs down her blouse. Her scarred bare arms are limp at her sides._

_"It's time to move on, darling," I tell her. "Thank you so much for everything. I hope there's peace where you are."_

* * *

We're curled on the sofa, drinking sherry, of all things. Waves of anxiety are starting to make me twitchy.

"Did you know the girls upstairs?" I ask.

"Not really. Jenna was a bit of a groupie, and we kept different hours. She wasn't home very much at any rate. I'd only seen her friend once or twice on the stairs. I don't know much about her at all."

"She was called Stephanie. It wasn't exactly true when I said I didn't know them. We gave them a ride home from a club in Bristol."

"What were you doing there?"

"We live there."

She raises her eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Sorry I forgot to tell you before. All the vampires I associate with live in Bristol. You're the only person I know in London, and that's a good thing. Herrick might be able to find me here but no-one here will help him look.

"Anyway... it was Herrick who killed Jenna. I... took an interest in Stephanie."

"Is that what you call it?"

"Oh please. Honestly, I liked her. On some level we understood each other. "

"Do you usually like the people you kill?" She's using that tone she did the day we met. Interrogating. It makes me tense.

"I don't usually know them. She was kind to me. I didn't plan to kill her. She had a drug dealer boyfriend she was trying to get away from so she was staying with Jenna to get away from him and kick the smack at the same time."

"Was it working?"

"She wanted it to, but not really. We were both completely wasted when I lost control and killed her. Herrick got what he wanted that time. He expected me to do it. He would've given me hell if I hadn't."

"That's no excuse for killing the poor girl."

"You're right, it's not." My voice rises in frustration. "I thought we'd been over this. I'm not trying to make excuses. I'm only telling you what happened. It wasn't an unusual night for us."

Josie scowls. "What if that was me you were driving home from Bristol? Would I still be here?"

"I don't know. I told Herrick I killed you too." She looks down, half-closes her eyes, and inhales loudly. "Want to know something else?" I ask.

"I don't know. Probably not. What?" Her expression darkens. I hate this, but I don't want to keep secrets.

"She came back right away. As a ghost. "

"Ghosts are real too?" She shifts away from me, sitting cross-legged on the sofa, elbows on knees, head in hands, looking down, eyes wide with disbelief.

"Yes. You wouldn't be able to see them, but vampires can. If their deaths are somehow unresolved, they stay in the world until they find resolution."

"Are they still here?" She looks around nervously.

"No. They stayed for awhile because they didn't understand what happened."

"What do you do in a situation like that? Did you talk to them?"

I know how this is going to sound, but I plow ahead anyway. She needs to know. "Well, Stephanie'd had a fix and was so high at the end, she didn't realize I'd killed her. Jenna remembered Herrick killing her. She was really angry, understandably.

"There wasn't much I could do besides explain why we did it. I told them what happened, that it was for the blood, that it wasn't personal. I said I was sorry but only to be polite. An apology is pointless. It's too late. Really, what should I apologize for? We're vampires. It's what we do."

"Except … you used to  _be_ human. You look like a human. You talk to humans. You  _sleep_ with them. Don't you have any feelings about killing them? I mean, other than thinking it's sort of a drag?"

"I'm not proud of having killed so many people. But guilt? Remorse? We can't generally afford those. They make things harder for us. I try to avoid killing when I can, but that's caused me problems. Especially with Herrick."

Her eyes narrow with vexation. "I see," she says.

Now I'm feeling defensive. "I don't think you do. This is how vampires live. We don't choose to be predators, any more than sharks or lions choose it. It's natural to for us to drink blood."

"It's natural for fleas and bedbugs too." With a glare, she crosses her arms across her chest.

"Look, I'm telling you it wasn't up to me! What was I supposed to do? If I weren't a vampire - if I'd never done the things vampires do - I'd be dead. Instead I've spent the past fifty-odd years with that bastard breathing down my neck."

She thinks this over, nods, and sighs. Her shoulders sag a little. She touches my shoulder. "All right. You don't have to shout. So what happens now?"

"I'm going cold turkey. It will be hard, and it will take awhile. With luck, we'll both live through it."

"Okay. What can I do?"

"Keep us both safe. Make sure your little crucifix is nearby. There's a stake in my coat pocket. If I try to hurt you, kill me. "

* * *

_A whiff of chemicals in a room under the stage._

* * *

I'm beginning to feel ill. I am resting on the bed and Josie is sitting in her bedroom chair reading a paperback book. She peeks over the cover.

"You're getting very pale. You look tired."

"Yes. And scared."

"What's happening to you?"

"There are voices. And smells. And faces. Sometimes they're momentary flashes, but sometimes they seem real. It's starting to hurt, too, pressure in my chest like I'm being crushed. And I'm freezing cold. It's only going to get worse."

Her brow furrows with concern. "I'll stay with you."

"This is going to be dangerous. I could lose control. Are you sure you want me here?"

"Enough of that," she says. "You're not going anywhere." She sets the book down, splayed open, on the chair, and comes to sit on the edge of the bed. She lays her open hand palm-down on my back and leaves it there, deliberate and motionless. Its energy radiates into me and I soak it up gratefully. Something about it blunts the piercing hunger. Another gift.

After a while she get up and brings her book back to bed, where she props herself up on her elbows beside me and reads.

The real pain starts as a dull ache in my chest, like an old wound that flares up before it rains. There's a dry ache behind my eyes. Nausea. Soon I'm doubled over with the hurt of it sucking at my ribs so hard they feel like they're cracking. My field of vision darkens around the edges.

She brings me hot milky tea with lots of sugar. It helps a little, but I'm still losing it.

* * *

_Trance of anticipation. Cacophony. Shock and hurt. Predatory quiet. Tearing and shattering. Bruised blue eyes. Twitching feet. Wails. Tears. A hand rising and lying still. Curly red hair matted redder with blood. Shock, surprise and disappointment. Perfume and smoke. Shit and piss. Bile, sweat, brains, skulls, earlobes, necks, wrists. Pulsation and quiet._

_Humans nearly corpses. Bloody sheets and towels, mop water. Whispers. A touch on the back. Teeth piercing skin. Hunger and thirst. Stalking and pouncing. Seducing and betraying. Kissing and fucking. Attacking from the front, from the side, from behind, awake, asleep._

_No gentleness no joy no laughter no love no comfort no peace no friendship._

_Howling emptiness._

_Nothing at all._

* * *

I shudder awake. The room is dark.

"Your face changed and you were growling like an animal," she says. "You were starting to scare me. Good thing you woke up."

I am ashamed, but then the pain twists into me, corkscrewing upward from the base of my spine. I wince and shiver and try not to make a sound.

"Are you cold? I'll run you a bath."

When it's ready, she helps me into the tub and I'm borne upward by warm water. The bathroom is lit only with candles because the overhead lights hurt my eyes. I drift there staring at the candle flames until the water is cold.

I emerge from the bath, and somehow she's right there with a warm towel. I stand obediently as she rubs me down and bundles me back to bed. My hair dampens the pillow and the heat dissipates into the cool sheets. I'm sinking into delirium.

* * *

Wires ratchet tighter and tighter across my skin, a series of long straight cuts.

_Sticky cold wet and muddy, dripping and oozing. Stiffened cloth drying stiffer still. Rough whiskered faces smelling of whiskey, eyes bulging hands scrabbling uselessly. Labored breathing, whistling through holes that don't belong there. Gurgling and retching. Farting and squelching and gasping. Glistening eyes and viscera. Red yellow white purple blue grey. Freckles, spots, carbuncles, scabs, scratches, scars, moles, open sores._

_Shells bursting. Mutilated limbs and unanswered cries for help. Shrapnel. Gas. Mud. Bayonets. Barbed wire. Morphine. Cigarettes. Rum. Chocolate. Hardtack. Rotted meat. Naked tree trunks on cratered wasteland. Smell of mildewed wool, gangrenous toes, unwashed arses, decayed teeth. Cordite and splinters and flashes of white light. Black fingernails._

_A slash at the vein. Steady pulsating flow ebbing and ebbing. Sucking harder and harder. Lapping blood from skin. Fixed pupils. A vulture picking gristle from a corpse. Blood coursing upward and downward, disappearing into a hollow coil, transmitting stolen life._

_Nails rake my skin. Screams in my ears. A trickle down my chin sliding under my jaw and dripping to the ground. A smear on the back of my hand. A trail down my white shirt from my collar to the middle of my back. A rivulet slides into my ear as I lie on the floor. My eyelashes stuck together with drying blood. Ruined waistcoats. Clotted flakes sprinkle the floor as I peel the socks from my feet._

_Iron copper salt sugar. Plasma and corpuscles and platelets. Bacon and smoke. Metal silk jelly custard sausage soup wine. Oblivion._

* * *

I'm back crouching at the toilet, dry-heaving. So cold. Boneless and clammy. My skin collapsing on itself. Her warm hands hold back my hair as I retch but bring up nothing, and then she helps me back to bed again.

My teeth chatter. She props a hot water bottle on either side of me and wraps an afghan around my shoulders. Dry lips stuck to extended fangs. Eyelids cold and heavy over my eyes like damp rags. The light is painful.

My hands shake so much I can't hold the cup of hot salty bouillon. She holds it to my mouth and I swallow gratefully.

"Why are you doing this?"

Her voice comes from far away. "In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess."

* * *

A glowing white haze around her like smoke. I don't know how long its been. A day? A week? More?

White haze turns red. Jagged wires cut all the way through laying me open and black spews into the room. I hear a heartbeat and reach for it.

"Mitchell! Stop it!"

Josie's face resolves through the red, her eyes horrified and enormous. My hands are twisted into her hair, pulling her toward me. _No no no no no no._

I push away from her. My fangs won't retract. "See, I have to leave. It's not safe."

She takes my hand and kisses the back of it, but doesn't let go. "You can't go anywhere like this."

A strap constricts around my wrist. I twist painfully to see Josie pulling a red leather belt tight around my hand, securing it to the bed.

_Okay. She's got nerve, I'll grant her that._

When she's done, I offer her my other hand. She nods grimly and gets to work. Then she does my feet too.

"Just until we get through this," she says. "And turnabout's fair play."  _Touché, sweetheart._

She disappears and reappears with fresh hot water bottles, which she lays at my sides, then tucks the blanket back over me. She sits on the bed beside my feet, far away from the teeth. The stake is in her hand.

"You can do this," she says, but her voice is shaky, and no wonder. There's a brutal monster in here. And also a prisoner who watches, and howls with despair, and gasps in horror and begs for it to stop. Kill the monster and the prisoner dies too.

* * *

It hurts. A tangle of black wire pulling tighter and tighter, the hollow spirals twisting over and over on themselves clenching into spasm. Snaky black strands work their way from the center to the outside, sucking, searing, burrowing through hips legs shoulders head eyes. Hollow tunnels cave inward. Structure undermined and crumbling.

_I lie on wet ground as a dark eyed young man kisses me and his rough skin smells of dust. he looks up and his face is reptilian, with glossy empty black eyes and lips drawn back to reveal venomous looking fangs. "Sorry mate, you're done for," he says, and my head is yanked back by the hair and his teeth rip at my throat. I try to scream but the breath escapes below the place my voice should be. My head lies in a pool of mud with rain splashing loudly beside my ear. My eyes aren't shut but they don't work anymore._

_Someone's forearm presses across my neck. I can't breathe. My chest tight and burning as I struggle for air. My eyes are swollen shut and teeth broken. A searing pain at the top of my leg then warm dampness across my belly quickly chills into a sticky glaze. Twisted concertina wire slowly being pulled out of my body, one jagged barb by one, tearing at my skin a little more each time. The last sight before my vision goes is the crown of a dark head below my waist, sucking the strength from me and drawing in the searing cold._

_I die in agony again and again. My fingers and toes go numb. The world expands and contracts from blinding whiteness to a black pinpoint and back to white. My lungs burn and my throat aches from screaming._

* * *

Another daytime. We're through the worst of it. There are no smells or sights or people that don't belong here. I am exhausted and raw, but I seem to have all my wits about me.

The hot water bottles are gone. I spit a rolled tea towel from my mouth but some of the threads are stuck between my teeth. My lips are cracked and dry.

She smiles wryly, picks up the towel, and brushes my hair out of my face. "Sorry, but I gave that to you to bite on. Helped quiet you down. You were going to wake the neighbors. I know it works better if you soak it with whiskey first, but I'm clean out.

There are circles under her eyes. "You said you were dangerous. Christ. I won't joke about that anymore. I think I spent two days just watching you thrash, and your face go from all demonic and snaky to normal and back. I told them at work that I was caring for a sick friend.

"I wanted to stay in here with you but after a while it was too dangerous. It looked awful. I tried to sleep on the sofa, but had to keeping coming in to check on you. Are you feeling better now?"

I wish I could cover my face because I don't want her to see me weeping. My tongue is like a dry stone. I deserve none of this, but I would endure the same ordeal a hundred times if I knew I could be here with her afterward. "Thank you," I manage to say.

"You do know how to make a girl feel appreciated," she says. She lies down next to me and her body heat warms me through the covers.

"I think I'm okay," I whisper. She nods, and undoes the straps: a flowered pink belt, a turquoise one, a red one, a braided black one.

It's a relief to have the sensation return to my fingers and toes. I sit up and look around at the room, the morning light, the empty mugs, water bottles, and discarded clothes on the floor, the tangle of sheets and blankets wrapped around me. She sits beside me. I take her into my arms and listen to her breathing and to the lovely sound of her beating heart.

"Welcome to the land of the living," she says. "You look a sight, you know. Go on, a little hot water won't hurt you." She nods in the direction of the bathroom.

There's a razor in the small bag of clothes I've brought from Bristol. The heat from the shower feels incredible. I wash and shave and emerge from the bathroom in jeans and pullover. I'm overwhelmed with the strangeness of it all - standing freshly showered in a girl's flat with no place else to be, feeling grateful and glad, and also like I've just stepped off a cliff. There's nothing holding me up. I've got no place to be but right here. I like that.

Josie's eyes widen when she sees me. Suddenly she's nervous and shy. "Let's have some breakfast, shall we? I'm famished. You must be too." She's talking a little too fast. She pulls the blue dressing gown more tightly around her and adjusts the sash.

I'm torpid and dizzy and achy and uncomfortably empty. I sit at the small table while she busies herself in the kitchen, taking out dishes, warming things on the stove, occasionally dropping something and cursing quietly to herself.

After a few minutes of this, she slides in front of me a plate of beans on toast and a cup of coffee. I sit there for a long second looking at it as the knob of butter she's put on top melts and runs toward the edge of the plate. She watches me across the table.

I pick up the coffee, which smells wonderful, and let the heat from the cup warm my hands.

"Is it too hot?" she asks.

"No, it's perfect."

Once I start eating, I can't stop. Certainly it's not the ideal thing for me, but it will have to do. Before I realize it I've eaten three plates full, and had two cups of coffee. I'm feeling a bit less faint. Maybe I  _can_ live on just food. Sighing with relief, I say, "This is amazing. You're amazing. I can't thank you enough."

"Yes you can. Just stay good, okay?" Her voice sounds strained. I've frightened her. "I'm going to have a shower, so make yourself at home." She disappears into the bathroom.

After finishing the washing up, I sit at the table sipping my third cup of coffee and reading the morning paper, idly scanning the crime reports for anything that smacks of vampire activity. I am relieved to find absolutely nothing. The London vampires are thorough. They must have tidied our earlier cockup too.

* * *

Hunger, not for food, is nagging at me, causing a dull ache behind my eyes and a chilly arthritic stiffness in my hands and feet. No amount of coffee, beans and toast will make the bitter gnawing in the pit of my stomach go away.

When she finally emerges, I'm looking out the window at the traffic passing by. It's mid-afternoon, with the light just starting to go golden and sideways. She stands beside me and touches my arm.

"Mitchell? Are you okay?"

"The craving's not gone," I say. "I can still feel it, like an open sore that won't heal."

"You'll have to ignore it then."

"Guess so. I don't expect it to get better. I'll have to get used to feeling like shit."

She sits on the sofa, elegantly folding one leg over the other, and takes out a cigarette. She offers me one and I sit beside her and give her a light.

"I've studied ballet since I was a girl," she says. "If you want to learn how to live with pain and hunger, ask a dancer. We learn to silence our bodies. If some extra weight keeps us from looking right in a costume, which happens all the time, we ignore the need to eat.

"Dancing en pointe looks beautiful and graceful, but it utterly destroys your feet. You get blisters and torn tendons and deformities and broken bones. There were times I wanted to kill myself because it hurt so much. You dance anyway, because you have to.

She gestures at a small brass sculpture on her bookshelf. "See Buddha here? I keep him here to remind me. The only way I could get through it all was to think about what he said, that life is suffering and suffering is craving or attachment. It's being attached to the idea of how we want things to be instead of how they are. Once I accepted that hunger and pain were part of the performance, it got easier.

"I don't know if that helps you, but it helped me."

"I'll keep that in mind," I say.

She takes a last drag on her cigarette and stubs it out. "Let's get some air," she says.

We step out into the crisp afternoon. She smiles at my oversized sunglasses. "Survival gear," I explain.

Holding hands like any young lovers, we walk, with no particular destination in mind.

After awhile, I notice her gait is uneven and she's favoring her left foot slightly. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, just a little footsore."

We stop into a pub she says she's never been in before, and sit at a table in a corner. We order pints and rest our feet. This is a date, I realize. We're on a date. I laugh, thinking of the normalness of it. The last time I sat somewhere having a drink, it was with Seth and Marco in Bristol - another world, another life.

"What's funny?" Josie asks.

"Just thinking about where I've been and where I am now. It's a lot different."

"I can only imagine."

"You don't have to," I say. "This is better."

* * *

When we get back to the flat, all I want to do is kiss her. We undress each other slowly and deliberately, with the lights on. I am learning her and she is learning me. I notice I am drawn to the pulse at her neck. There's no avoiding it. I kiss, and feel the blood moving beneath the skin. I close my eyes and do not bite. I roll onto my back and pull her to me. It's different this time. We're not afraid.

She is wise and fragile and precious. She has saved me, is saving me, will save me.


End file.
